


The Unofficial Oxventure Novelisation

by Rasalahuge



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Youtube RPF
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Novelisation, Prudence POV, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15694062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rasalahuge/pseuds/Rasalahuge
Summary: Prudence just wanted some fun, a bit of gold and maybe a few human sacrifices. She had absolutely no intention of joining a group of ridiculous adventurers as they stumble their way into an adventure, or not, in a way that can only be described as semi-competent.Unfortunately they're all really entertaining and painfully loyal despite her being, you know, an amoral tiefling warlock sworn to a dark eldritch god. What's a girl to do? Well... stick around until she can't stand Corazón's mouth getting them into trouble anymore and then probably disintegrate them, probably. That might be a long time in coming though... Not that she's going to tell them that. Obviously.





	1. The Oxventure Begins

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Oxventure Begins](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/406839) by Outside Xbox and Outside Xtra. 



> Let's call this a happy 6th birthday Oxbox and congratulations on 500k Oxtra. Thanks for being you!

Casta Falls was a fairly average human town, in her opinion. It was crowded, noisy and smelled worse than some of her more esoteric experiments. On the one hand, it meant there was a good chance she would either find something to entertain herself or someone no one would miss for a blood sacrifice. On the other hand…

Prudence huffed a sigh and prepared herself for the inevitable stares, insults and people fleeing in terror from the sight of her. Once, a long time ago, the inevitable horror humans showed when facing her had hurt, she’d done nothing to them and yet they’d fled. Then she’d actually done something to earn that horror and it had become amusing. These days it just bored her. It was handy, occasionally, for getting discounts when she was running short of gold, but she was a warlock-for-hire with very little by the way of a moral compass. She was _never_ short of gold.

Technically she didn’t need to go into Casta Falls, she had plenty of supplies, but it had been a week since she’d last entered a settlement and though it had ended well for her, she knew her Master would soon grow impatient. Blood sacrifices were not the only way to please him, but they were the most fun.

Lifting her chin and letting her eyes fill with the power of her god, Prudence set forth into the town, letting her tail gently swish back and forth like a predator on the hunt. She had not met many other tiefling, but those she had tended to hide themselves in some way, even if they told themselves they were not. Prudence had very little in the way of patience for those tiefling. She would not hide.

The insults were quick to come. The looks of disgust and horror. One particularly stupid individual attempted to start an exorcism. Prudence’s lips curled into what might generously be called a smile as she turned to the human. Grubby and already sweating, the man wore a cross that marked him as a member of the so-called ‘holy’ orders. He also wasn’t anywhere near as brave as he thought he was. Prudence barely looked at him before his jaw snapped shut and he quailed. Urgh, how disappointing. She turned away and continued on further into the town, the crowds parting before her. It didn’t take long to find the market, which was usually the best place to find entertainment, not far from the docklands.

Here, at least, everyone was far too busy to pay her much by the way of attention. She still had no difficulty passing through the crowds, but she was left more or less alone in the melting pot that was the market. Humans still dominated, but they were not the only race about. Orcs and elves were common sights, browsing for wares to take back to their own settlements. A troupe of gnomes had set up a small stall selling trinkets that were probably meant to be magical, but almost certainly weren’t. One particularly sour looking dwarf was busy negotiating with a group of sailors for repair work on their ship. Prudence scanned her eyes over the crowds and wondered what entertainment her Master would like today.

The curling of something warm and terrible in her back of her mind caught her attention and nudged her towards one of the huge noticeboards set up in the centre of the market. An officious looking man was unrolling a large scroll and hammering it to the notice board with a nail. Prudence watched for a moment as a small crowd gathered. On the one hand, notices like that meant dealing with people she probably shouldn’t kill. On the other hand, the man who had just posted the notice was very obviously a man servant to someone rich and while she was never _short_ of gold, that didn’t mean having more gold was a bad thing. There were always experiments she could do for her Master for which the ingredients were usually prohibitively expensive.

“Eh,” she said to herself. “Reading it doesn’t constitute a binding agreement,” well not usually anyway. Prudence could probably write a binding contract that was sealed by reading it, but that was a piece of magic she hadn’t yet attempted and she’d like to do a little more research before committing to such an endeavour.

Although the results would probably be very funny.

Considering what she could use such a piece of magic for, Prudence strolled leisurely towards the noticeboard, keeping her eyes on the growing crowd around the notice. It really was attracting attention and not just from the people of the town. A tall pirate, dressed as if he had just strolled into town and declared he owned it, was frowning at the board, his fingers tapping on the hilt of his cutlass. A few paces away stood what had to be a half-orc (full orcs never had that kind of complexion) with huge soft eyes, biting his lips with his fangs and looking like he was remembering horrible things. He wouldn’t be worth another look except that he bore a lute on his back and a cutlass at his side, which were unusual choices for an orc, even a half-orc.

As Prudence pushed her way to the front of the crowd, she caught the smell of old forest and older magic, and realised she’d ended up stood next to a wood elf. To be fair, the wood elf was short even for their kind, and was hidden beneath a heavy cloak, they were easy to miss. Then again the elf also bore a short bow that looked like it had seen significant use, so Prudence did the sensible thing and didn’t push the elf over to see the board. The scroll was fairly standard for this kind of thing and something Prudence had seen in many towns during her travels.

_Adventurers needed at Mayweather residence  
regarding missing person  
REWARD OFFERED_

Missing person, hmm? Now there was a lot Prudence could do with a missing person, depending on how they had vanished. It was surprisingly easy to persuade people that said missing person had already been dead when Prudence reached their kidnappers. She just needed to make sure…

The pirate was talking to her.

“What?” Prudence looked at him with a frown, realising that at least half the crowd had dispersed and she was now stood with the pirate, orc and elf in a loose group. The other three were looking at her, and seemed to have already come to some agreement between themselves and were waiting for her answer. “Who are you people?”

“Corazón de León, my lady,” the pirate gave a theatrical bow. “I was just suggesting to our fellow adventurers that perhaps, if we wish to undertake this quest, we should join forces?” Prudence was immediately sceptical, and not just because the pirate had called her ‘my lady’. No one acted like that unless they were either hiding something or wanted something.

“The cash would be useful,” the orc admitted. “And everyone in this town has terrible taste in music,” he added under his breath. At which point Prudence realised the lute wasn’t for show and he was a Bard.

“And you are asking _me_ to join?” Prudence lifted a sculpted eyebrow at them.

“Why not?” the orc asked with a confused expression. Prudence stared at him, because surely he wasn’t that stupid? “Uh…”

“I am a tiefling,” she said when he continued to look confused.

“And I’m a half-orc?” the orc blinked, “how is this relevant?”

“She expects us to hate her for her appearance,” the elf, who was female judging by her voice, explained quietly. “Most people do. As if hating a wolf for being a wolf is anything but a waste of everyone’s time.”

“I’ll be honest, my lady,” Corazón looked at her. “I just figure you’d be handy in a fight, or for getting information. You don’t turn away useful skills on the high seas over something as pointless as a pair of horns and a tail.”

Well then.

How very interesting.

“I have nothing better to do,” Prudence announced airily. She was interested in the quest and if worst came to worst none of them looked like they’d be particularly difficult to kill.

“May we have your name, my lady?” Corazón asked and Prudence smirked thinly at him.

“That depends if you’re going to keep calling me, ‘my lady’ or not,” she informed him.

“I mean… if you want me to, I guess?” Corazón blinked his airs and charm vanishing in a blink at his evident confusion.

“Prudence will do,” Prudence replied dryly and then looked at the elf and the orc. “And you?”

“I’m Dob,” the half-orc answered with a friendly smile.

“Merilwen,” the elf added. “You’re a warlock, aren’t you?” she asked quietly and Prudence glanced at her.

“As much as you’re a druid,” she replied and Merilwen lifted her head just enough to show her youthful face, rounded and, frankly, unfairly adorable. She smiled, as warm and friendly as Dob, and Prudence immediately felt suspicious. Dob, she assumed, was friendly because he was too stupid to understand deceit. Merilwen, on the other hand, was almost certainly older than any of them here and had the eyes of a hunter; she must know how to hide beneath a friendly face. Prudence was not the sort to lower her defences among strangers, but she did take particular note of Merilwen, she was definitely the most dangerous of these new companions.

The Mayweather residence was easy to find. It was a large, opulent building clearly meant to showcase the wealth of the family to everyone and anyone who cared to pass by. At the gates a large crowd had gathered and Prudence cast an eye over them. The would-be adventurers were… well. Prudence cast a glance back at her own companions and decided she had probably picked the best of the bunch, though that said more about the quality of those who had gathered than the three with her. Most of those gathered had no armour to speak and those that did, the chainmail looked like it was one stiff breeze from disintegrating from rust. The weapons on display weren’t much better, consisting mostly of clubs and a few pitchforks. At least the pirate, druid and bard had actual gear that suggested this wasn’t their first time adventuring.

On the gate stood the same man who had posted the notice, gazing balefully at the crowd. Clearly he’d made the same judgement that Prudence had, that not a single person in this crowd was going to achieve anything. He looked desperate and in Prudence’s experience, the desperate tended to overlook inconveniences like race. Drawing herself up to her full height, Prudence stalked forward, commanding attention letting the other three follow on behind her and take advantage of the space she was automatically given. The man on the gate looked up sharply, glancing first at Prudence and then at the other four. The look of relief in his eyes said much.

“You four!” he shouted out, pointing at the group of them. “Come inside!” well that was easy enough. Today was looking promising. Prudence allowed the other three precede her, keeping her eyes scanning the surroundings for anything unexpected.

The manservant led them through the opulent entrance hall of the house and into the drawing room where a single man came to a halt, having obviously been pacing back and forth. He had the bearing of a noble, proud and entitled, and his clothes showed the clear wealth he had. His expression wasn’t quite right though, it didn’t match the image Prudence had in her head of most of the upperclass. Frowning inwardly the tiefling studied the man, trying to work out why he looked pained and slightly constipated instead of arrogant.

“Good… good day,” the man said once his servant had presented them. “My name is Mr Mayweather, but please call me Arlo,” his voice wavered, cracking the way a human adolescent’s might and Prudence didn’t like it at all. What was wrong with him? “Um… Thank you for coming. My… It’s my son. He’s… he’s gone missing.” Oh. Oh wait. Was he upset? People didn’t really get upset in Prudence’s near vicinity. Fear and anger, yes, but not upset. Interesting, maybe she should study this phenomenon…

“Listen it’s… it’s best if… I’ll just… Come through, I’ll show you,” Mayweather said gesturing for them to follow him out of the room. Prudence barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes and immediately dismissed any ideas about studying the man. Not worth it. Why had they been brought to this room if he was just going to take them elsewhere? Why were people stupid? She didn’t say anything however, because gold and also because her companions all looked suitably solemn (though Corazón was clearly faking it) and she didn’t particularly feel like calling attention to herself. Yet, anyway.

The group were lead through the house and upstairs to where the living quarters for the family clearly were and from there into a large bedroom. It was, frankly, an obscene showcase of wealth, between the painted plaster walls, the fine drapery and the four poster bed. Prudence, however, barely noticed because movement immediately caught her eye. A rat. It flew around the corner of the door and scurried down the hall. Why was there a rat in this part of a rich man’s house? The kitchens, perhaps, or the cellars but not the living areas. Someone was losing their job for that.

“This is my son’s room,” Mayweather gestured to the room, as if that wasn’t obvious, completely ignoring the rat. Prudence’s estimation of the man’s intelligence fell even further and she hadn’t thought him particularly intelligent to begin with. “As I said, he’s missing.”

“That’s why he’s not here then,” Dob muttered under his breath to Corazón. The pirate smirked thinly.

“Our first clue,” he agreed though he, too, was looking more in the direction of the rat than the room.

“Last night,” Mayweather continued as if he hadn’t heard anything, maybe he hadn’t, he was so obviously distracted by whatever it was that had happened to his son. “Probably around eleven, I suppose, I heard a… a shout. My son’s voice. I rushed in and the window was open and he was… gone. I can only assume someone has stolen him away,” the man’s rambling came to a halt even as Prudence took the opportunity to wander further into the room. She didn’t bother looking for anything interesting; she already knew where their first clue would take them.

“Merilwen?” Corazón turned to the elf, “By chance, do you have an affinity for animals, specifically rats?”

“There is a ritual I could perform that would allow me to speak to any animal,” Merilwen answered though she looked somewhat distracted. “Something was not right there. My druidic magic reacted to the rat, it was not normal.”

Hmm. Prudence turned in the direction the rat had disappeared in and cast out with her own magic. She wasn’t terribly surprised she couldn’t feel anything, but it was worth the attempt.

“Arlo, I may call you Arlo?” Corazón had switched his charm back on and Prudence had a feeling she knew where this was going to go and settled in to watch. How well this went would determine whether she needed new companions or not. 

“Of… of course,” Mayweather seemed somewhat taken aback by the pirates sudden friendliness.

“You don’t need to worry; we have a very powerful druid in our party who can speak to rats. We believe that rat was a… uh… material witness,” a _what_? “In the… uh… don’t worry about it. We’re on the case,” Corazón sent Mayweather a grin that was clearly laying on the charm far too thickly. Mayweather’s expression crumpled from upset to irritation.

“Stick with it, Arlo, but we also need half up front,” Dob said cheerfully playing along. Prudence couldn’t quite hold back the snicker that escaped her lips. Morons, entertaining morons admittedly, but Prudence was definitely surrounded by idiots! This was not how one charmed their employer! Prudence was not going to tell them that though, because then she’d actually have to negotiate with Mayweather and she didn’t feel like it.

“I… I mean… I… we’ll talk about… about your reward shortly. But what are you talking about? My son’s been taken! I don’t care about… about _vermin!_ ” Mayweather was nearly shouting by the end.

“But we feel the rat might have seen something! What if the rat was here when your son was taken?” Corazón tried but Mayweather wasn’t listening, he was blustering with offence. Prudence rolled her eyes.

“You guys did note that the rat ran off, right?” she drawled sarcastically, just to get things moving along.

“Uh… right. I knew that,” Corazón blinked in surprise and clearly he had forgotten. Prudence huffed and hoped that she didn’t have to go and get the rat back, because she wasn’t chasing down vermin if she didn’t have to. Fortunately the pirate seemed perfectly happy to do the heavy lifting. “I got this, I’ll get the rat,” he said, flipping up his eyepatch and then stalking out of the room with purpose while Mayweather stared on.

As they stood waiting, Prudence noticed the orc sliding up to her side and murmuring under his breath.

“I mean, you’re a warlock right? You could just charm him?” he said indicating the incredibly offended man of the house. “To stop the complaints? I was thinking about putting him to sleep but that seems like we wouldn’t get paid.”

“What charm him into just paying us without doing the work?” Prudence smirked approvingly. “I mean, sure, I’ll make the attempt if you like.” Her charm work was hit and miss, she preferred intimidation because it was pretty much guaranteed to work whereas some people refused to look past her horns and skin and eyes despite the magic.

“Or I could conjure an image of his son (disclaimer: it won’t smell or move); you persuade him it’s real and…” Dob suggested and Prudence chuckled with laughter. She was starting to think that this might end well for her, money and free entertainment. On the other hand amusing morons could quickly turn into irritating ones, as Mayweather was proving with his very existence. So far the pirate and bard were allowed to live, but she was definitely reserving the right to change her mind.

Unfortunately for both Prudence’s amusement and Dob’s practicality that was when Corazón decided to reappear. Improbably, he came with his hands wrapped around the rat, which was sniffing loudly and looking far more confused than a rat had any right to be while carried by a pirate.

“How did he…?” Dob started and then seemed to decide not to ask, it wasn’t worth the answer they would no doubt get. Corazón then presented the rat with a flourish to Merilwen who also looked somewhat astonished at the pirate’s success.

“I never want to find out,” Prudence declared even as Merilwen overcame her surprise.

“Right, well, that worked,” the elf commented. “The ritual will take about ten minutes. Dob, would you be so kind as to grab a cushion on which I can place the rat? It will be more comfortable for all of us,” she said immediately reaching into her belt pouches for whatever it was she was going to use for the ritual.

“Now wait a minute…!” Mayweather started to object as Dob did as he was bid. The man’s voice spluttered to a halt however when Prudence casually strolled over to his side under the guise of getting a better look. He glanced at her, at the horns and the tail, and then wisely chose to keep his mouth shut. Prudence nodded absently and instead focused on the druid. Druidic magic wasn’t something Prudence was particularly knowledgeable in and she had no real intention to change that. Animals were food and occasionally, when people were scarce, ingredients in blood rituals. That did not mean that she couldn’t have an academic interest in a ritual taking place right in front of her. Experience like this could be useful, especially if Merilwen turned out to be dangerous.

Of course the ritual could be as boring as watching an elf stare at a rat through a leaf while golden leaves made of light swirled around them, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be useful at some point. Prudence hid a yawn behind a hand as the minutes ticked by and nothing else seemed to happen except that the golden leaves of light swirled in patterns that were probably objectively pretty but didn’t make up for how boring this was.

Eventually however, Merilwen spoke.

“Bud, I need to ask you some questions,” she said her voice soft and, Prudence hid a grimace, _kind_. “There was someone in this room, a boy.” Was he a boy? Mayweather didn’t seem old enough that his son would be an adult, but they didn’t actually know that. In fact, it occurred to Prudence they didn’t actually know _anything_ about this son they were supposed to be finding. “He’s missing. What happened by the window? Did anything come through the window? Did anything leave the window?”

The rat just sat back on its haunches on the pillow and stared, with an air of being distinctly unimpressed. Prudence didn’t know rats could convey those kinds of emotions, maybe she could run some experiments later once Merilwen was done questioning it?

“Was there one person here, or two people? Or is there another animal?” Merilwen paused and then frowned as if a thought had just occurred to her. “Are you him? Are you the son?”

If a rat could roll its eyes, then this rat probably would. Prudence approved. It squeaked and Merilwen’s eyes widened slightly at whatever answer it had given. The elf nodded solemnly and then turned to Mayweather, smoothly getting to her feet and tucking the leaf away back into her belt pouch.

“Sir,” she began and Prudence started to mentally predict all the ways in which this was going to go wrong. “I’m afraid my druidic senses were right. Someone has laid a spell on your son and turned him into this rat.”

At which point whatever concern Mayweather had about being stood next to Prudence seemed to collapse under the weight of his fury. Prudence was actually slightly impressed, the man was nearly as red as she was and when he spoke it was a low roar of fury that might have been intimidating. Presuming, of course, he wasn’t shouting at a tielfing and a group of morons who felt justified in being morons.

“I should have known better than to let a bunch of _rastabouts_ from the street into my home!” he thundered. “You insult me. You insult my boy, _who has gone missing!_ Get out! Get out!”

“But it’s him, Arlo,” Dob tried, big eyes wide and pleading as he held on tightly to the cushion on which the rat still sat. “Quick someone charm him!” the orc hissed, and by someone Prudence assumed he meant her.

“Alright, _Arlo_ , calm down,” she stepped forward calling on her magic. She murmured the infernal incantation and felt her magic reach out towards the human. To her irritation however, it seemed that Arlo was far too angry to react to the charm. “Damn it,” she huffed with irritation. She felt the black glee in the back of her mind where she could feel her Master’s amusement. Yes, okay, so that was a long shot. She was much better at intimidation. Her companions glanced at her and she shrugged silently, considering options. Realistically, if they wanted to get paid they should probably just take the rat and find a way to change it back.

“We should leave,” she told the other three who, it seemed, took a little longer to come to the same conclusion. Maybe they were hoping to persuade Mayweather some other way, but Prudence knew it wasn’t going to work.

“Arlo, we’ll get out of your hair,” Dob said meekly holding the cushion to his chest. “Sorry for upsetting you. _Canwetaketherat_?” he asked in a hurried whisper.

“ _Get out!_ ” Mayweather bellowed again, “Take your filth rat with you!”

Prudence didn’t need a second invitation. She lingered just long enough to see Dob waving his hand over the rat, for some reason, and then start to stuff it into an empty pouch before she left, head held high. As she went she let a flicker of magic rush down her fingertips and knocked over a very expensive looking vase on a side table in the entrance hall. It wasn’t much by the way of mischief, but the sound of it shattering was music to her ears. She promised herself she was definitely coming back later to do something particularly poignant to the man who’d just thrown her out. Even if it was mostly her companions fault for being morons.

“What did you do to the rat?” Merilwen asked as they exited the house to a now deserted street. The other would-be adventurers had clearly left when it became obvious they weren’t getting hired. The druid frowned at Dob as she spoke and clearly she had noticed him doing something strange as they left.

“I cleaned him,” Dob answered guilelessly, “I can use prestidigitation to clean things,” he said and then shifted slightly, clearly embarrassed. “I also made him spicy,” he admitted in an undertone.

“Wait, what?” Merilwen blinked in confusion looking at Corazón and Prudence. The pirate was just as confused as Merilwen even as Prudence thought over what she knew of spells. She’d heard of prestidigitation before, it was one of those strange spells that did some very random, but useful, things. Most people used it for practise; Dob apparently used it to flavour rats.

“I flavoured him,” Dob said, “I made him spicy, so if a falcon or something swoops in to eat him, they’ll drop him for being too spicy.”

It was interesting logic, admittedly, but it was logic. Prudence had met some very strange people in her life, but she was pretty sure Dob was going to win out at being the strangest. This was the half-orc who wanted to charm their employer into paying them without doing the work and now he was worried about wild animals attacking a rat in a belt pouch?

Prudence decided that, for the sake of her sanity, she was just going to play along and pretend everything was normal. Then, when this was over and she’d been paid, she could forget she met a half-orc bard who made a rat _spicy_. Admittedly she _could_ just leave her companions now and escape the idiocy, but at the same time Corazón had caught the rat and Merilwen had confirmed the rat was the boy they were looking for. They were still entertaining morons.

Prudence pointedly turned away from the orc. She would give them a little longer to prove whether they’d be assets or hold her back, but that didn’t mean she was going to have anything more to do with this ridiculousness. Instead she looked down the street; what had, at first glance, seemed like an empty street was not in fact empty. There was a woman there, dressed in hard-wearing clothes that had none-the-less seen better days. She didn’t look like she’d slept in days and was clearly debating whether or not to approach them. Prudence took in her nervous, bordering on frightened, expression and assumed that, naturally, she wasn’t going to even attempt to come near. The warlock was therefore surprised when the woman did approach. Until she realised that the woman had edged over to Merilwen and Corazón, avoiding getting too close to either Prudence or Dob. Ah, well then.

“Are you… you them one’s that gonna go look for the Mayweather boy?” she asked hesitantly, her commoner’s accent thick and uncertain.

“Well,” Corazón stepped forward, clearly deciding to take the role of the group’s spokesperson again despite how well it had ended last time. “I mean, it’s a long story, but yes,” the woman looked at him oddly but did at least seem to take him at his word. Whatever it was she wanted, it was clearly enough to push past a great deal of scepticism.

“Did he… did he jus’ disappear?” she asked again. This time Corazón looked like he didn’t know how to answer the question and was clearly trying to think of an answer that wouldn’t have the woman laughing at them, or angry.

“Well, again, it’s a long story,” the pirate answered. “ _He’s sort of a spicy rat now,_ ” he said in an uncertain aside. “But, yes! Let’s say he disappeared!”

“Yeah, probably a wiser idea to tell people he disappeared,” Merilwen muttered under her breath to the pirate.

“We won’t tell anyone he’s a spicy rat,” Corazón agreed, even though he’d clearly just done that, and then smiled charmingly at the woman who seemed even more sceptical. Whatever had happened to her, the fact that she hadn’t walked away from them yet was a sure sign she thought it was important.

“Well… Well, I don’t mean to impose on you, none,” she said warily. “But me husband, he’s gone missin’ as well,”

“ _What?_ ” Corazón muttered even as Merilwen and Dob made noises of sympathy. “What flavour of rat is he?” the pirate groaned and Prudence stepped on his foot pointedly. The pirate’s big mouth had already put their reward at risk; she wasn’t going to let him do the same to what might be a good source of information. He might be entertaining, but Prudence had limits (Okay, to be fair, getting kicked out by Mayweather had been a joint effort, but Prudence wasn’t concerning herself with pesky things like details).

“ _Hush!_ ” she hissed at him and the pirate scowled but did at least shut up about the damned rat.

“Sorry! I mean… ah…! When… what happened? Can you tell us what happened?” Corazón tried to recover himself but the woman was looking at him like he was insane, which possibly was the truth.

“I don’t quite follow you, ser?” the woman edged away slightly from the pirate.

“Don’t worry, just thief’s cant,” Corazón said airily and, honestly, the way he recovered his composure was, well not impressive but… something at least. “Can you tell me what happened to your husband?” the faux-solemnity from the Mayweather residence returned and though the woman didn’t look any more convinced as to his sanity, she did at least answer. Prudence wasn’t certain if that was Corazón’s ability to talk his way out of trouble, or just her desperation.

The tiefling glanced at the pirate and then huffed inwardly. Desperation. It was definitely desperation.

“Well, I dunno. I was workin’ late an’ I got ‘ome an’ there was… the… the room was trashed and the kitchen… It looked like there’d been a struggle. There was stuff strewn everywhere, me husband’s work clothes were jus’ _there_. I don’t…” she broke off, overwhelmed and Prudence smirked thinly to herself.

“So he’s nude?” she said almost as an aside and was unsurprised when none of her companions even noticed. Ah well, chances were he was a rat anyway and a clothed rat would be ridiculous.

“Were there any animals in the house?” Corazón asked.

“Umm, well we’ve got a few chickens in the house?” the woman looked at the pirate as if he was stupid for not knowing that. Granted Prudence was certain he was kind of stupid, but she didn’t know why the woman would expect a _pirate_ to know the habits of ordinary commoners when it came to the keeping of their animals.

“Were they there before?” Dob said with an overly friendly smile.

“Umm,” the woman edged away from the large half-orc. “Well, yeah, we feed ‘em. Keep ‘em fer eggs. I mean…” she glanced around then at the four of them, her eyes sliding very quickly over Prudence as if she’d rather not acknowledge her presence, “I ain’t got much to pay you, not like ‘im has. But if ye work out where me husband is. I’ll…” she trailed off again, nervously wringing her hands in her sleeves.

“Well we can certainly investigate the scene,” Corazón promised cheerfully. “Where did this happen?”

“Oh,” the woman seemed somewhat surprised at their easy acquiescence, but then it wasn’t like she knew they’d already been thrown out by Mayweather. “At me house,” she gestured down a side street, presumably in the direction of her abode.

“Well then, lead the way,” Dob said with another friendly smile that didn’t do much to put the woman at ease. Still the woman’s confidence did seem to return as they strolled through the few streets towards her house, perhaps she was simply glad to have some kind of purpose. By the time they reached her house, a small building squashed between two others, she was no longer a nervous wreck. She led them into the singular downstairs room which consisted mostly of just a kitchen and a set of spindly stairs upwards to, presumably, the bedroom area. Sure enough the place was a mess with an overturned table, a number of displaced tools and items a few smashed pots strewn and a full set of clothes strewn across the floor. A small cluster of chickens were clucking about, pecking at the floor and the clutter. Prudence carefully stepped around everything, considering the chickens. They were very healthy looking; perhaps the woman would offer one in payment for finding their husband? She clearly didn’t have much money but there was a lot a tiefling warlock could do with chicken blood and bone.

“This is it,” the woman said, somewhat obviously.

“A rat couldn’t have done this,” Corazón mused, “a rat couldn’t tip over a table.”

“No, not even a really big one,” Dob said seriously, as if he was actually considering a giant rat.

“Not even the biggest one in the world,” even odds, Prudence decided, that Corazón was saying that seriously or just playing along with Dob’s… interesting character. Still a giant rat… Prudence was half way to being thoroughly distracted from their purpose here by the thoughts of giant rats and chickens and rituals when a commotion caught her attention again. One of the chickens, a cock if one wanted to be technical, had wandered over to Corazón and was now pecking at his ankle. The pirate did not look impressed.

“Calm down man,” Dob said immediately, his already big eyes widening in alarm. “Be cool.”

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Corazón said, though it clearly wasn’t. “It’s stopped pecking me now,” he said just as the chicken decided to peck him again. The pirate’s composure visibly cracked.

“Merilwen could try talking to it?” Prudence suggested hiding her smirk, waiting for the explosion that was forthcoming.

“Merilwen, could you please tell this chicken to stop pecking my ankle?” Corazón’s voice was so stressed from trying to remain polite that Prudence was surprised they couldn’t hear his teeth grinding. To no one’s surprise the chicken pecked at the pirate again. Maybe it thought Corazón was food? Or an intruder? Did chickens have the brains to understand what an intruder was? “Ellen I swear, if you don’t get this chicken to stop pecking at me…” Who was _Ellen_? Prudence blinked.

“I can’t… I can’t just…” Merilwen started, looking both at once confused and a little irritated. Prudence wasn’t surprised: between the threats to the chicken, the wrong name and the fact that Corazón had _just_ witnessed the dull ten minute long ritual the druid needed to perform to properly commune, she would be annoyed in Merilwen’s place.

Corazón lost his temper and kicked. The cock flew across the room, punted by the boot of a pirate and landed in a pile of feathers with an outraged squawk.

Everyone froze for a full second.

Dob looked panicked. The woman looked rather irritated. Prudence herself was only somewhat amused.

Merilwen… well Merilwen had switched from softly spoken and kind to ready to murder. Her eyes flashed dangerous and sharp and it looked like it was taking all her restraint to not do something horrible to Corazón immediately.

The elf, as Prudence had expected, was dangerous. Good to know.

“Is he alright?!” Dob broke the silence by rushing to the cock’s side and scooping it up. Fortunately for Corazón’s continued existence the chicken seemed to be ruffled but it squirmed in Dob’s grasp until he set it down again and then squawked with further offence. “He’s fine,” the half-orc announced to the relief of only two people in the room. Tension eased from Merilwen’s shoulders, although she was still glaring at Corazón with a look fit to kill.

Prudence studied the elf and wondered what it would take to persuade her to serve Prudence’s Master. Elves did not typically swear to eldritch gods, and wood elves least of all, but her Master would probably be pleased with gaining a follower who had such a depth of righteous fury in her soul. Of course the only problem then would be that Merilwen would become a competitor and rival and Prudence might have to fight her. As the elf’s abilities beyond talking to animals and having a short bow remained a mystery, it might be better to Prudence to learn a few of her weaknesses (aside from animals, obviously) before she suggested it. Just in case.

The chickens were probably an easier way to please her Master. A good chicken sacrifice usually pleased him, especially if she could find a giant rat to throw into the mix just for fun. Less chance of her getting murdered by an elf too.

“Hey guys,” Dob said and Prudence blinked, realising that while she’d been thinking Dob and Corazón had actually gotten a start on the actual investigation, examining the room carefully. Corazón was knelt by the clothes, prodding at them and revealing the layers. Dob however was picking up a bottle that the cock had decided to peck at with the loss of Corazón’s boots.

Merilwen had gone from the silent stage of her rage to incoherent babbling.

“I… I warned you… I said I couldn’t just… I couldn’t deal with it and you just… you just lost your patience and you just… hurt a chicken. I am so mad, right now. I am _so mad at you_ …” the annoying thing was, Prudence thought, that Merilwen was still unfairly adorable even when incandescent with rage. Corazón wasn’t paying her much attention, which Prudence expected he’d come to regret later.

“I gave him every chance to walk away,” the pirate said, still paying the clothes more attention than the furious elf, “Its high sea’s law. It’s how it happens,” actually, Prudence realised, he wasn’t looking just at the clothes, he was focused on something on one of the kitchen counters and using the clothes as cover.

“We’re not on the ocean now, we’re in this fine lady’s kitchen,” Dob said straightening up. “But really, guys, look at this…”

“ _Really mad_ ,” no one was paying the half-orc any attention whatsoever.

“I’ve still got my sea legs. I kicked him with my sea legs, can’t blame a man’s his sea legs,” Corazón was standing up now and not so subtly heading towards the counter. Prudence looked closer, spotted the gold pieces and considered the merits of just stealing the rat and that bottle from Dob and walking out. “Did you guys notice those clothes are laid out properly?” he said trying to cover his movement by leaning on the counter and gesturing expansively at the clothes. “Like the shirt is inside the waistcoat, the pants inside the trousers… weird, right?”

“Yeah, weird, but _seriously_. This bottle I’ve found is kind of a big deal!” Dob’s voice went slightly high pitched as he waved the bottle at them.

“Why is the bottle interesting?” Corazón rolled his eyes.

“What does it say on it?” Prudence aimed for less sarcasm if only because Dob was clearly not going to let this go and the chicken had seemed interested in it before Dob picked it up.

“Well, the chicken seems pretty keen on it, I don’t know if it’s liquid chicken feed or anything,” Dob said shooting Corazón a slightly dirty look. Prudence didn’t know if that comment was meant to be sarcastic or not, but the half-orc continued anyway. “It says ‘M. Channail’s Miracle Cure-All! The ‘M’ stands for ‘Miracle’,” he recited pointedly and Corazón shut his mouth, and the swallowed the clever comment he was about to make, sharply. “Cures all ailments, from gut-rot to butt-rot, baldness to koboldness. It’ll transform your life!” Dob looked around pointedly. “Anyone mind if I take a swig?”

Alright that was possibly taking the whole ‘payback for ignoring him’ thing a little too far. Even Merilwen, still glaring at Corazón intermittently, seemed alarmed at that suggestion.

“Err, I do!” she exclaimed, “I do!”

“I would counsel Bob… er…” Corazón seemed to realise his mistake the moment he said it.

“Dob,” the half-orc glowered. “Still got his sea-brain, am I right? Still got his sea-manners, that’s for sure,” Prudence had to admit, Corazón seemed to have a gift for just plain infuriating everyone who crossed his path.

“Right. Dob. I knew that.” Corazón blinked uncertainly, finally realising his predicament. “Dob, I would counsel that, clearly, err… the man who was here before drank this and something happened to him to make his body go away.” Dob did not look overly impressed by the attempt at conciliation.

“He’s the chicken right?” Prudence stated what was perfectly obvious to her, if apparently no one else in the room.

“Possibly as a chicken,” Corazón concluded. Dob rolled his eyes, clearly unimpressed, and sniffed the bottle as if to make a point about him not being stupid enough to actually drink it.

“It smells pretty bad,” Dob said.

“Can we feed it to someone else? To see what happens?” Prudence suggested, already eyeing up the woman and wondering what kind of animal _she_ would make. Rats and chickens were all well and good, but what if she turned into something really useful? A goat, goats were great for sacrifices, but a lot more expensive than chickens. “His wife?” she suggested, keeping her tone a little quieter, in deference to the fact that she was stood there listening to them and seemingly with more patience for weirdness than Mayweather.

“Uh, woah, hang on!” Merilwen frowned.

“How do we feel about force-feeding someone an unknown potion?” Dob seemed sceptical but he was eying the woman up as well.

Corazón said nothing, the reason for which became inescapably clear, when the woman suddenly stiffened and walked towards the pirate whose hands had drifted too near to the gold coins. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t paid much attention to the weirdness, because she was too busy being unimpressed by a very poor attempt to steal what little money she had.

“I… uh… I was just investigating these gold pieces to see if there were any clues,” Corazón said with his best attempt at a charming smile. “But obviously I’ll just leave them here, they’re yours,” he said, fooling precisely no one.

“Much obliged,” she said and then swiped the five gold pieces from the table and tucked them into her pocket with a glare before returning to her previous perch.

“Not a problem,” Corazón muttered, his face flushing with embarrassment. Apparently he’d expected everyone to be too distracted to notice, and yet they all had. That meant that now, literally everyone in the room would happily gut the pirate, although Prudence was probably still the only one who’d do it for fun rather than out of anger.

With that, it seemed Dob decided it was time to move on, before they were thrown out. Again. The half-orc sidled up to the woman with the bottle of potion and offered it to her.

“This bottle we just found,” he said carefully, keeping a watchful eye on the woman, “Have you ever seen it before? Did you know it was in your house?” he said. With a cluck of impatience the woman took the bottle and frowned at it.

“No,” she said slowly, her voice drawling a little as she thought. “But I have seen this flogged in the market, I think.” Dob looked back at the rest of them then, meeting Prudence’s eyes with a look that said ‘obviously, probably should have guessed that.’

“Who’s selling this? Who is this M. Channail?” Corazón wasn’t one to keep his mouth shut for long, apparently, as he chimed in. Prudence briefly considered gagging him, but then realised that would mean she might have to actually talk to random townsfolk to get information and decided against it.

“I don’t know,” the woman replied handing the bottle back to Dob, “It’s just a stall.” She shrugged lightly, tucking her hands into the pockets of her dress.

“Can you tell us how to get there?” Corazón said and Prudence blinked. To the market? The place where they had been when the notice about the missing boy went up? She didn’t say anything, but she did wonder if and when Corazón would realise that.

“It’s the market,” the woman said looking at Corazón strangely.

“We’re all from out of town, some directions would be great,” Dob cajoled and Prudence didn’t roll her eyes, but she wanted to. Not only had they started at the market, the town _wasn’t that big_. Still the woman did manage to give them directions without giving away that she clearly thought they were mad. Merilwen, at least, looked slightly less homicidal as she met Prudence’s eyes and they both nearly laughed out loud. At least they hadn’t been thrown out yet.

“Madam, thank you very much for your help,” Corazón said with a small flourish at which point the woman frowned and started to speak up, just as Dob tried to continue whatever it was the moronic duo were attempting this time.

“Sorry, I just don’t really see wha’ this ‘as to do with me ‘usband?” she asked when Dob motioned for her to continue.

“We believe that this bottle may be connected to your husband’s disappearance,” Corazón explained.

“We need to go to the market and check out the seller of tonics,” Dob agreed. Merilwen tried to speak up then, looking to interject, but Corazón and Dob were in full swing and continued to speak over her. Possibly not a wise decision, as the elf was still visibly mad, but something they did anyway.

“You don’t want to drink any of this, of your own free will?” Corazón tried gesturing to the bottle in Dob’s hand.

“Ah… I mean… if my ‘usband’s disappeared and _that’s_ the reason…?” the woman took half a step away from Dob and said bottle.

“I mean… we’re saying it could be, this could help us find out?” Corazón smiled.

“Then maybe, perhaps, not,” the woman said. Prudence tried not to feel disappointed, she knew full well that there was little chance Corazón would persuade her to try it given the impression they had left thus far. But she did kind of want to see what animal the woman would turn into. Of course she could give it to the woman by _force_ but then the others might get huffy. Well, Merilwen might get huffy at least, given Dob and Corazón also seemed up for feeding it to the woman. Still Prudence wasn’t going to anger the elf on purpose; she wasn’t as stupid as Corazón.

“Fair enough, madam,” Corazón and then started towards the door.

“Hang on,” Merilwen claimed her opportunity. “Can I talk to the cock first?”

“Wait, cock?” Corazón blinked.

“Male chicken,” Merilwen rolled her eyes.

“I mean, sure, great idea,” Corazón blinked again, clearly bemused, and then stepped towards the chicken.

“No,” Merilwen glared at him even as she extracted her magical leaf from earlier. Prudence shook her head and stepped forward instead, scooping the chicken up and holding it for the druid. It was a nicely plump chicken, she noted, with very silky feathers. Carefully Prudence squeezed the chicken, trying to judge the weight. It would make a good sacrifice, she considered, and even better if it wasn’t actually a chicken but a man turned into a chicken. That would definitely please her Master.

Ten minutes passed, just as boring as it had before, until Merilwen suddenly spoke into the quiet room.

“Are you her husband?” straight to the point, at least. The cock shrieked and Merilwen smirked thinly.

“What did it say?” Prudence asked, because something had definitely cheered their elf up.

“Keep that bastard pirate away from me,” Merilwen said smugly, looking in Corazón’s direction. The pirate looked sheepish for all of about a second, until the elf looked away again and his expression turned mulish.

“Hey, man, you were pecking my ankle,” he groused at which point Merilwen looked up again and scowled at him.

“Well, we didn’t get a good answer now, because you kicked him,” the elf said pointedly.

“Yeah, well, ask it again,” Corazón glowered. Honestly Prudence wasn’t sure how the elf hadn’t just stabbed the pirate by now. Admittedly, that kind of thought was probably why Prudence didn’t have any friends, but really who actually wanted _friends_? Everything she’d heard about them said they were a lot of effort for minimal reward.

“Are you her husband?” Merilwen asked again trying to look like she had been intending to do that anyway and not just because Corazón suggested it. This time when the chicken cawed at her she nodded. “What happened?” she asked again and listened intently as the chicken seemed to spout out a long list of complaints, most of which the elf nodded at seriously, but then look slightly alarmed as she looked up at Prudence.

“I’m sorry, can you just, loosen the grip on him a little bit?” she asked with a smile. Prudence thought about it. It was just a chicken; she could always catch it again if she did decide to sacrifice it. Instead of loosening the grip she opened her hands completely.

“Fine,” she smiled toothily as the chicken fell to the ground with another squawk and a meaty thud. Merilwen frowned at her and Prudence shrugged in what was an attempt at looking innocent that the elf clearly didn’t believe for a second.

“Alright guys, I think we’ve caused enough damage, let’s head to the market,” Corazón said and Merilwen nodded as she climbed gracefully to her feet, ending the ritual.

“Indeed, he did confirm the bottle as the source of the trouble,” she agreed and with that the group nodded towards the woman and then traipsed out of the door. For some reason Corazón looked exceptionally pleased once they reached the street and it wasn’t until Prudence caught a glimpse of something shiny being slipped into a pocket that she realised what it must have been. Not a terrible thief, after all, if he’d actually managed to swipe the gold in the end.

It didn’t take long to get back to the market place, but it was long enough for Dob and Corazón to both realise that they had been here before and pretend they hadn’t actually asked for directions. Prudence didn’t even bother paying them attention, scanning the crowd instead for signs of anything useful. It was as they were walking through the crowds that she heard it.

“Miracle elixir! Come on and buy it!”

Prudence wasn’t the only one, nor was she the only one to turn in the direction of the stall. By market stall standards it was fairly average but for the ornate sign which bore the same declaration. There were rows upon rows of bottles identical to the one Dob carried. This then, was their guy.

“Alright guys,” Corazón announced with a degree of command that wasn’t really called for. “I think our end game is transforming this rat back into a boy so we can get our reward, right?” he said to general agreement. “So, this guy is selling elixir which turns people into animals. So maybe he knows how to turn them back? Do we confront him with the knowledge that we know what he’s doing and he’s in trouble and he needs to turn people back?”

“I don’t know,” Dob frowned.

“I feel that’s the way we should go,” Corazón pushed.

“I don’t feel like we should confront him. I think we should just play it cool. I think we should send one of us up there, pretending to be a customer and just…” Dob suggested.

“To what end, though?” Corazón interrupted.

“I just want to hear his version of it,” Dob answered easily. “Because if we just rock up there, he’s going to be defensive. He’ll shut us down, he’ll ride off and we’ll just look like crazy people insisting we’ve got a rat-boy.” Not that Prudence disagreed with Dob, because she could see his point, but she wasn’t entirely certain this party wasn’t crazy anyway.

“I’m not saying that we show him that rat-boy at any point…” Corazón tried but then trailed off. Maybe he was remembering how well confrontation had worked for them so far. “I’m just saying… his elixir’s turning people into animals, he needs to stop and help us put it right!” the pirate was very emphatic by the end, even if he wasn’t making much sense.

“Hmm,” Merilwen intruded looking thoughtful and slightly smug. “I’ve got an idea,” she announced to the group. “I don’t… I don’t know how deceitful I can be, but if we have someone who is, who’s charming I’ll just say nothing. But we go up, we buy some elixir and I _pretend_ to drink it. I transform into my wild form, exposing what the elixir does, but also without putting anyone in danger. Put him on the spot.”

Now, that was a plan. So good in fact that Dob gasped with delight. Prudence however was eying the druid up somewhat skeptically.

“Wild form?” the warlock asked.

“I can turn into a wildcat,” Merilwen answered calmly, as if shapeshifting was a natural thing and not normally something only very, very skilled and experienced mages and druids could do. Prudence had pegged Merilwen as a relatively young elf (though of course older than the rest of them), a natural gift for shapeshifting was… almost unheard of.

“Confront him with his crimes,” Corazón was smiling brightly now, a gleam of anticipation in his eyes, “But not in an irreversible way. I like it.”

“It’s great,” Dob agreed with an eager nod.

“So Ellen goes up…” Corazón began and what was with the ‘Ellen’ again?

“I need someone to go with me,” Merilwen interrupted before Corazón got very far and this time she did send the pirate a strange look for the name. “I’m not very charming. Ah, also, someone will need to confront him; otherwise I’m just a cat and not a talking one.”

“I’m intimidating, I can go,” Prudence offered instantly, because this she had to see.

“We’ll all go,” Corazón agreed.

“Let’s pretend we don’t know each other,” Dob suggested, “We can form a queue and all confront him separately.”

Prudence didn’t have any issue with this plan, nor did any of the others. With the decision made, the unlikely group of companions turned towards the stall and began the next part of their adventure.

 

**_Will Merilwen’s plan to turn into a cat work? Why are people being turned into animals? Who is the mysterious M. Channail? Find out in the next chapter of Dungeons and Dragons!_ **


	2. Showdown at the Crypt

Prudence watched as Merilwen stumbled over towards the stall selling the elixir, even as she herself strolled up casually behind her. The elf was playing up her supposed ‘sickness’ more than strictly necessary, pausing every few steps to cough harshly, but it had caught the attention of the seller. Prudence turned, just enough to check that Corazón and Dob were following on, and then took up a position behind Merilwen to form the queue they had agreed to.

“Alright luv,” the man said eying Merilwen with greed in his eyes. “Come up ‘ere, an’ this elixir will fix whatever’s up with you,” he looked over Merilwen’s shoulder and smirked at Prudence. “I don’t know that it’ll fix you being a tiefling, heh heh heh,” the man chuckled and Prudence very almost rolled her eyes. Plan, reward, she told herself even as she internally judged the man’s attempt at a joke and found it wanting. She’d heard much better. “So what’s up wit’ you then?” he addressed Merilwen.

“I have… I have this horrible pain of the chest,” she said, coughing again. “I’m very worried that it… it might be…” she shuddered to a halt, breathing heavily.

“Scurvy!” Dob shouted, not very helpfully, from the back of the queue.

“Hurry it up, up there!” Corazón added.

“Sorry,” Merilwen gasped. “I’m not sure what it is… but doctors haven’t been able to cure me of it.”

“Well,” the seller straightened himself up, picking up a bottle of the elixir. “Luckily we have here a miracle cure-all. So, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure why I asked what was wrong. This’ll fix it. Three gold pieces, mate,” he grinned hungrily.

“Great, thanks,” Merilwen said and shakily handed over the gold, “I’ll take a bottle.”

“Lovely, here you go,” the man swiped the gold and handed over the bottle. “Now most people like to take that at home, or in a secluded area, in case of a funny turn.”

“I’m afraid…” Merilwen said reaching for the stopper, only to pause and start a very realistic coughing fit. “I’m afraid that… I’m not sure I have the time for that…” she coughed again and the seller started to look slightly alarmed.

“Now I really must, I really think it would be best if you take that somewhere…” the seller started, clearly not entirely sure what to do to stop her but wanting to. “I really must insist! You’re holding up the line, if you would just…”

It was too late, Merilwen popped the lid of the bottle and pretended to take a long swig. For a heartbeat nothing happened, then the elf started to fold in on herself. Over the course of about six seconds the elf disappeared entirely into the folds of her cloak which twitched and let out a quiet mewl before a small wild cat appeared. Prudence looked at it and the cat peered back, tail twitching as it climbed from the cloak and let out a small meow. It was cute. That was annoying. How was it that Merilwen was so unfairly adorable?

“What the hell?!” Corazón shouted, pushing forward to stand beside Prudence, “Stall-keep! What is this? Your potion is bad!” Prudence herself frowned pointedly, glaring at the merchant, even as she noted Dob sneaking around the back to cut off the man’s escape.

“Now! Now! Hang on a minute!” the seller stuttered, eyes wide with panic, “She is, or was, a wood elf! And who knows what kind of ailments they have?! There’s no proof, no way you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that was the fault of this miracle cure-all elixir!”

“Well!” Corazón argued right back. “I guess you’ll have no problem drinking some yourself!”

“I’m afraid the terms of my contract forbid me from sampling the wares,” the man said though he was now visibly sweating, his eyes glancing around at the crowd which didn’t just include the four of them now. “Especially while on the clock.” Dob muttered something to himself, Prudence noted, but she was too far away to hear what it was.

“I say we force him to take it? What do you all think?!” Corazón declared.

“Agreed!” Dob immediately shouted and the seller jumped as he realised he was surrounded. Prudence smirked darkly and then stepped forward, now for her turn. It was almost a shame that the others insisted they only wanted a confession, but at the same time… she really, really loved this part. Standing up to her full height, tail thrashing in anticipation, Prudence reached into her core of magic and cast upon herself thalmaturgy, letting the burning power show in her eyes. Thunder crackled as the very air around her sparked with eldritch energy.

“ _ **What gives with your potion, man?!**_ ” Prudence’s voice echoed and thundered, a powerful rumble that could shake the very ground if she so chose. Beside her, Corazón’s eyes widened in alarm, but he still leant in and muttered to the seller.

“She’s crazy, man!” he hissed even as Prudence loomed further. “I really think you should just tell us what’s going on.”

“ _ **You turned our friend into… whatever this wood elf is now!**_ ” she thundered, even as Dob aimed a kick at the cart, causing it to tremble in time to her words. Merilwen let out a small meow of approval.

The man turned ashen, his entire body trembling and the stench of urine reached Prudence’s nose. He stammered silently for a moment as Prudence glared at him, before letting out a small babble of almost words.

“ _Pleasedon’thurtme,_ ” he managed to get out as he physically shrunk away from Prudence. “This isn’t mine… It’s just a… just a job. I’ll,” his voice cracked to a high pitched whine. “I’ll admit I have been made aware of the slight… _Transformativeproperties_ … of the elixir.”

“Slight,” Corazón scoffed from where he leant against the stall.

“If I tell you where it comes from, will you let me go?” he bargained. Prudence thought about it. On the one hand the only thing she loved more than inflicting unholy terror on people was killing them brutally, especially when she could get away without the law coming after her, which was tedious. On the other hand… there was no other hand. Unfortunately before she could disagree and make more pointed comments, Corazón spoke up instead.

“I think we should let him go,” the pirate said, “Give him a stern warning, maybe chop off his hands.” Alright, that sounded like fun. Prudence turned more fully to the human even as Dob stepped forward to join the conversation. The seller, if it was possible, turned even whiter as he garbled out in terror.

“I think, we’ll take all his merch, though, right?” Dob said looking pointedly at the bottles of elixir. “We can’t leave him with all the bad stuff.” Prudence nodded, because that made sense, even as Corazón slammed his fist onto the stall.

“Just tell us where it is man!” the pirate shouted impatiently.

“Al-alright!” the seller choked out, “Ride out, there’s a place called Pillow’s Bluff, it’s about half a day’s ride out. There’s a crypt, it looks abandoned but it’s… not. That’s where it’s made,”

“Okay,” Corazón leaned over to peer at the man. “Now get out of here, you. I never want to see you selling any remedies or potions or poultices or any of that kind again,” the seller glanced at Prudence who smirked thinly, letting the thalmaturgy fade. “And we’re going to smash up this stall.”

“As you wish,” the man bowed backing off and trying not to walk into Dob in the first place. “I’m sorry for turning your friend into a cat.”

At that point Merilwen let out a smug meow and promptly turned back into an elf smirking with self-satisfied pleasure.

“Joke’s on you, she could do that already,” Corazón glared. “Now fuck off,” Dob let out a short exclamation at the curse, but Prudence was more interested in the seller who didn’t need any further persuading. He turned and cheesed it, to put it bluntly, fleeing in utter terror abandoning his cart, his merchandise and a small kitty of gold that Corazon gleefully helped himself to. Okay, so she didn’t get to kill him or chop his hands off, but that was fun. Undoubtedly she’d get the chance to kill someone else before this was over, if the seller had only been a front for the operation.

On the other side of the stall Dob stepped forward, bracing himself before throwing himself at the cart.

Then he promptly bounced off and crashed backwards onto the floor into the puddle the terrified seller had left. If Prudence had been a lesser mortal, she would have laughed out loud at the sight of an orc, even a half-orc failing so miserably at what was clearly an attempt to overturn the cart. Ah, who was she kidding? She laughed, it was a hilarious sight. The tiefling leant one arm on the cart partly to hold herself up as she laughed and partly to rub it into Dob whose face was flushed with embarrassment. As Dob clumsily clambered to his feet Prudence watched him wave a hand over his clothes, quickly cast prestidigitation to clean off the urine. Regaining some composure Prudence turned around to her other two companions, Merilwen was hiding a smile and her own amusement even as Corazón shot Dob a withering look. The pirate started to grab bottles from the stall and smash them on the floor in a much less dramatic (and much more successful) fashion. The potion seeped into the cobbles at their feet, smelling frankly foul, but even as Prudence noticed that she also caught a waft of exotic scent, at which point she realised Dob had, in fact, flavoured himself. Cinnamon, she believed.

It should have irritated her, left her exasperated and desperately reminding herself of why she was still here. For some reason, though, it didn’t. Probably because they’d been successful in getting information and she was in a good mood. It wasn’t because this particular bunch of idiots was actually funnier than they were annoying, not at all.

The thought instantly soured Prudence’s good mood. Money, she reminded herself. Money, the chance to kill people and entertainment. That was why she was here, that was the only reason she wasn’t killing the morons she was currently hanging out with.

“Alright guys, we have a new lead,” Corazón said once he finished smashing the bottles. “I say we roll up to the crypt. It’s half a day’s ride… umm, we don’t have any horses but there might be a stagecoach heading that direction?” he suggested.

“Or,” Dob said glancing at the cart, “Given that I just failed to destroy the cart, why don’t we use it? We could rock up to the crypt, in the guise of the potion sellers, and they might be like ‘ah the potion sellers are back to resupply,”

“That’s not a half-bad idea,” Corazón agreed. Prudence didn’t want to agree with Corazón on principle, but discovered she actually couldn’t argue. Oh well, the pirate would no doubt do something to irritate her again soon, “We’d just need a horse to pull the cart.”

“I don’t suppose Merilwen can turn into a horse?” Dob looked at the elf hopefully and she shook her head.

“I’m afraid not, I can only turn into a cat, for now,” she answered. Probably just as well, Prudence considered, best not use their druid as a carthorse as that might not end very well for anyone except Merilwen.

“There’s a stable just down the street, we can enquire about horses there,” Corazón pointed out. “Between us we probably have enough to rent a horse for a couple of days; it’s probably the quickest and easiest way of doing it.”

“Yeah we shouldn’t waste time trying to steal one,” Dob agreed. It irritated Prudence that she couldn’t think of a reason to disagree with him and so as the others headed down the street towards the stables she allowed herself to glare warningly at the locals around the cart, making sure they knew the consequences of touching it while they were gone.

The stable was bustling, as most stables were, and stank of horse and already Corazón was causing upset with his big mouth as Prudence trailed in behind the others.

“Ho, fat merchant,” he was saying to the stable master even as Merilwen and Dob tried to shut him up and Corazón ignored them. “Your finest horse that twenty gold pieces will buy me, or rent me for a couple of days.”

“I vote Prudence does the talking from now on,” Dob said as Prudence reached them.

“I would, but racism,” Prudence replied and Dob sighed in clear disappointment. The stable master glared at Corazón but didn’t turn him away, probably because Corazón was shoving the twenty gold pieces practically in his face.

“Good morrow rude pirate,” the stable master sneered. “You can have this horse,” he gestured to a grey cart horse that was stood nearby, “and you can piss off while you’ve got it.” He then snatched the gold from Corazón’s hand and marched off.

“Yarr, that be fine by Corazón,” the pirate said drawling his words into something that sounded like a nobleman’s impression of a pirate rather than a real pirate. Dob and Merilwen were hiding laughs as they collected the carthorse, but Prudence wasn’t fooled, they were _highly_ amused by the stable master’s handling of the big-mouthed pirate too.

Fortunately it didn’t take long for the horse to be hitched to the cart and it didn’t require any further interaction with people so Corazón couldn’t get them into any further trouble. They all climbed into the cart, Dob and Merilwen sitting up front to drive the horse with Prudence and Corazón in the back where the bottles of elixir had been packed.

It was a relatively uneventful trip; if one could call it uneventful when they spent a good deal of it bickering over how they would get into the crypt the seller had spoken about. And by bickering, Prudence meant Corazón winding them all up again.

“Can anyone alter their appearance to look like the vendor?” Prudence asked lazily as she checked her stiletto knives, pulling out a whetstone when one of them didn’t match her usual standards.

“I think, I feel like it’s going to be a big operation,” Corazón had interjected. “They’re not going to know who the vendor was by sight. I reckon I could pass as the vendor with my persuasive pirate skills…”

“What if it’s just M. Channail himself?” Prudence cut him off, because _no_ , not a chance. Corazón was not to be trusted with any kind of persuading until he proved he was capable of _not_ angering everyone he met. Which was never going to happen, because Prudence had no intention of ever giving him the chance to do so.

“I’m trying to think of how we could disguise ourselves. Personally I don’t…” Dob tried, even as he dug through his pack, clearly looking for anything useful. Or maybe looking for food for the rat, which was sat on his knee and looking irritated. Either was possible.

“Guys!” Corazón intruded again. “I think you’re overthinking this. We throw a blanket over you in the back, I ride up front…”

“Classic pirate behaviour,” Prudence scoffed. That was a terrible plan, made worse by the fact that he was suggesting heading it up instead of someone more capable. Literally the only thing he had going for him was that he was the same race as the vendor and that wasn’t insurmountable with the right disguise.

“I ride up there and I tell them that we’ve run out of elixir…” Corazón spoke over her and Prudence narrowed her eyes in his direction.

“Ohh!” Dob let out a triumphant grin and reached into his pack again. “I just remembered, I picked something up a while back. I have a disguise kit,” he said and pulled the kit in question out with a flourish.

“Oooh,” Prudence grinned even as she and Merilwen gave impressed exclamations in unison. That _was_ useful.

“Interesting,” Corazón cut himself off, looking from the kit to Dob and back again. “Can anyone use it?”

“I mean I could give it to anyone,” Dob said, “but obviously it has my particular foundation shade and stuff.”

“It’s tailored for you,” Prudence jumped on the option. Anything to keep Corazón from insisting on taking the front seat.

“Well,” Corazón looked far too disappointed by that answer. “If you think you can do a better job at fast talking than a literal pirate…” he was sulking now, basically.

“Well, I mean, I _am_ a bard. I’m very amiable; I can talk to anyone,” Dob said cheerfully, which was true and currently Dob was doing a much better job at talking to people than Corazón.

“Alright then,” Corazón agreed, “So we jump in the back under a blanket, you drive us up. Say you’re out of elixir and you’ve come to restock, and we use the chance to get the lay of the land, work out what this operation is about. Yeah?”

Prudence still preferred the option where they stormed in the front door, but Merilwen’s deception had worked well enough before and Corazón wouldn’t be the one talking, so she didn’t really have any particular objections. Thus she leant her agreement to the plan and sat back once more to watch Dob make his rather impressive transformation from a large, curly-haired, wide-eyed half-orc into the greedy vendor. The rest of the half day’s ride to the crypt passed without much note and as they drew near Prudence, Corazón and Merilwen hunkered down into the back of the cart, behind a couple of empty crates and covered by a blanket. Immediately their view of proceedings was lost, which was irritating, but less irritating than the pirate standing on Prudence’s tail in what she hoped (for the sake of their deception when Prudence murdered Corazón) was an accident. She hissed, low and dangerous, even as the pirate realised what he had done and carefully moved his foot.

The cart lurched as Dob slowed it and Prudence heard the tell-tale rattle of armour from someone unused to wearing it. She slowed her breathing and stilled, listening carefully.

“Back already, are ye?” a voice called, presumably a guard at the crypt.

“Yeah, they can’t get enough of the stuff,” Dob called back in a decent imitation of the vendor’s drawl.

“All right. Well, that’s… that’s quite impressive actually; we gave you rather a lot,” the guard’s voice was a little muffled by the blanket but Prudence could hear the scepticism. Scepticism wasn’t bad, because it wasn’t suspicion, not yet, but it wasn’t good either.

“If I’m being honest,” the cringe in Dob’s voice was audible. “I may… have had a little accident with some of it. But I’ve been meaning to talk to Channail about that, I can explain and I’ve got his money,” the half-orc sounded perfectly reasonable and, well, it was the truth even if it was a truth that bordered on dangerous. “I mean, if you can let us in, I want to talk to him about this personally.”

“Who’s ‘us’?” Prudence winced at the guard’s sudden defensiveness.

“Uhhh… me and the horse?” Dob tried, badly. “Look, when you’re a merchant you spend a lot of time on the road, with your horse. You spend a lot of time with it,” stop, stop, stop. Prudence chanted it in her head because she couldn’t say it out loud. “I just think that it has a lot of stuff to say and to share.” Merilwen was stifling giggles, badly and Corazón was shaking, as if he was desperately trying not to laugh. Prudence was surprised to find herself resisting the urge to laugh as well. It was ridiculous and terrible and was going to give them away, but… it was also hilarious.

“Are you quite sure that’s all you’ve got in that cart?” the guard clearly didn’t buy it, which to be fair was perfectly reasonable. Prudence couldn’t see, but hopefully their stifled laughter and shaking shoulders weren’t catching his attention. “You’re talking about you and the horse?”

“Alright look!” Dob cut off desperately. “I’ll be honest. Something went wrong with this kid and his parents were rich, right? So I’ve got… I’ve got the rat. The rat, but it’s a boy. I need to talk to… I need to talk to the boss about getting it transformed back because his parents are minted.” Dob hissed. “His parents are minted and we’re going to be in a lot of trouble. It’s gonna blow this whole operation if this gets out. I know I don’t want it to.”

“You brought the rat-boy _here_?” the guard hissed right back.

“I _know_ , but what was I supposed to do?” Dob countered. There was a pointed silence, the guard clearly thinking it over.

“Look if this is a ransom job…” the man started.

“It’s not,” Dob tried but was overridden by the guard.

“You’d better cut me in on it, cos if you’re going to go back to them boy’s parents and say we want a big wad…” the man trailed off threateningly.

“Look, it’s not a ransom job, but I know that you’re having a hard time here so how about a bit of gold for your trouble? Ten?” Dob pleaded and there was a paused as the guard considered it. “Fifteen?”

“Done,” the guard said pointedly. “But if I hear you’re ransoming this boy, you’re going to have to answer to me, alright?”

“Mate, I’m just trying to get my job done, you’re just trying to get your job done,” Dob insisted.

“Alright, get your rat and your horse and your cart in there then, you weird animal fancier,” the guard groused.

“Thank you sir,” Dob said and Prudence listened to the jangle of gold exchanging hands even as the gates started to creak open. After a moment the cart jerked slightly and they were moving again.

“ _Dob, what are you doing?_ ” Corazón hissed as soon as he judged they were away from the guard. Dob ignored him however because the guard was shouting after him.

“Don’t forget to check in with the guy in the entrance hall!”

“I know, I know, I know. It’s not my first rodeo.” Dob paused. “I mean, first dragon riding competition.”

Prudence didn’t ask. Not because she was under a blanket in the back of a cart, trying not to be discovered, but because she just straight up didn’t want to know.

“ _Has the plan changed? Are we still…?_ ” Corazón hissed at Dob as the cart rumbled to a stop for the second time.

“ _We’re not fully in yet,_ ” Dob hissed back, “ _I need to check in with this guy. We don’t want to fully bust out yet._ ”

“ _Fine, but you need to be in character, remember who you are, there’s no on in the back,_ ” Prudence rolled her eyes. Dob had gotten them in, hadn’t he? Sure it had been closer than any of them might have preferred, but it had worked.

“ _I’ve got this, I’ve got this,_ ” Dob sounded irritated, again.

“ _Be cool man,_ ” Corazón clearly couldn’t take a hint.

“ _It’d be easier to be cool if there wasn’t whispering coming from my empty cart,_ ” Dob snapped and then hopped down from the cart before Corazón could say anything else. From where she was lay, Prudence couldn’t see the pirate’s face, but she could imagine the pout. The three of them stayed where they were, despite the cramped confines, and waited for any kind of signal.

Of course, none of them were expecting the signal to be someone laughing hideously and then the pounding footsteps of a charging half-orc. Prudence raised her eyebrows in surprise as they heard the clang of metal hitting metal and the thunk of someone collapsing. Okay, Prudence thought, something must have gone wrong, right? Or were they just giving up on stealth altogether now. Either was fine with her, but knowing the situation before they acted might have been nice.

Corazón and Merilwen both leapt up out of the cart immediately. Prudence, rising more slowly, watched the pirate dash inside the crypt to deal with whatever the laughter was while Merilwen swung her bow around. By the time the tiefling had taken in Dob standing over the crumpled form of a guard the elf had already let loose her arrow which thudded into the ground less than an inch from the guard’s knee. Judging from Merilwen’s irritated expression that had not been intended as a warning shot.

Well, this was going swimmingly. With a huff of impatience, Prudence loomed over the scene from the back of the cart, pulling herself up to her full height and arching her neck so that her horns were pointed directly to the heavens. The warlock called up her magic feeling it flood through her veins. In the back of her mind she could feel her Master’s bloodthirsty anticipation.

The eldritch blast crackled across the distance between the guard and the cart over the heads of Prudence’s compatriots to strike the crumpled guard full in the face. Lightning sizzled across his body as, with a brief expression of agony, the man began to disintegrate like a hot coal. His skin blackened and crumpled to ash, too fast for him to even be able to scream. Even from the cart Prudence could smell the unmistakable smell of charred meat.

In the back of her mind Cthulhu purred with pleasure and Prudence smirked.

She stepped down from the cart with grace, allowing her magic to sink back down inside her. “Shall we go inside?” she enquired.

Dob, now stood over what remained of the guard, looked like he was about to start hyperventilating, staggering back several steps his eyes widening in alarm. Merilwen had turned distinctly green, as if she were mere moments from throwing up everything she had ever eaten. She lowered her bow and turned to stare at the tiefling beside her, adorable face twisted by nausea. Behind them Corazón came out of the crypt looking pleased with himself.

“Alright guys, I finished tying up the guy inside. Did you manage to knock-out the guard on the gate?” he said and then paused, blinking. “Uh… where is the guard on the gate?” he asked. “Did he run off? Is he going to alert more guards?”

As the pirate spoke, Dob seemingly started to breathe more erratically and Prudence heard the laughter from inside the crypt cut out rather abruptly. Merilwen, on the other hand, seemed to have gone from shock to hysteria because for some reason she cracked up at Corazón’s words and fell laughing helplessly to the floor. She still looked like she was going to throw up though, so Prudence figured it was just a weird reaction to watching a man disintegrate.

It took Corazón a minute, to connect Dob and Merilwen’s strange behaviour, Prudence’s smug smirk and the pile of ash where the guard had been to come up with the correct answer. He paused for a second, staring at Prudence, before he said matter-of-factly.

“I did say you’d be handy in a fight?” he didn’t sound too sure about that, clearly worried about annoying her. Good, Prudence decided, the pirate could do with a dose of humility and fear. “So, uh, what actually happened? Because I heard a guy laughing and went to handle that and now there’s a red smear on the floor?”

“It was all going well,” Dob said, fighting to get his breathing back under control. “I charmed my way past the first guard, incapacitated the second one. Then I tried to get back and surprise knock out the first guy, but what can I say, things went a little bit sideways. Anyway in the confusion, luckily you got what I was trying to do and tied the other guy up before the spell wore off. These guys,” Dob said looking at Merilwen and Prudence warily, “These guys just variously ranged _exploded_ him while I was just _right there_.”

“Hey, I was trying to incapacitate!” Merilwen objected. Fortunately she had managed to stop laughing which made her objection that much more convincing.

“I mean, guys, I’m a pirate and even by my standards that is…that is seriously…” Corazón trailed off, sending a sideways glance at Prudence and wisely choosing not to end his sentence.

“Shall we not dwell on it?” Dob asked, his voice going slightly squeaky, “and just get into the crypt?”

“What’s done is done,” Corazón shuffled a little further away from Prudence.

One the one hand, Prudence enjoyed inflicting terror on people, on the other a part of her felt a slight sinking feeling the moment her companions flinched away from her. That was… odd, she thought. Why would it bother her that they flinched from her? They were amusing, yes, but it wasn’t like she actually liked them, they were little more than convenient assistants who could be described by various degrees of the word ‘moron’.

Wait, she didn’t like them, right?

“You’re welcome,” Prudence drawled at them all, shoving the unsettling thought away with a certain degree of viciousness. “I saw a lot of failure happening and stepped up,” she added with a scoff which set Dob stuttering briefly before he rallied.

“One swift boot to the face would’ve… No, you know what, it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. It’s more important we continue to work as a team,” Dob said smiling at her hesitantly. Prudence scowled and the half-orc immediately stopped. With a scowl she stared pointedly at the others until, cringing, they all headed into the crypt.

She didn’t like them. She didn’t like anyone except her Master.

Prudence remained in a huff.

The entrance hall was pretty standard for a crypt, except for the unusual placement of a desk upon which sat a tray of food including and apple and some cheese as well as an inkwell, quill and several sheets of parchment. There was also a sobbing man tied up on the floor, but Prudence didn’t consider that to be particularly noteworthy, from his incoherent sobbing the warlock guessed he was begging for his life. Unsurprisingly, Prudence had a lot of experience with people incoherently begging for their lives. To either side of the hall were doorways while behind the desk was a single set of stairs descending deeper and curling out of sight into the darkness.

Corazón strolled up to the trussed man and stood over him.

“Alright, friend, you’re tied up,” the pirate said and the man mumbled and nodded. “You saw, or heard, what happened to your friend out there?”

“W-well I didn’t have a great angle on it, but from the conversation that’s happened since then, yes, I think I understand,” the man whined, his voice high-pitched from fright and interspaced with the occasional hiccupping-sob.

“Needless to say, we’re serious,” Corazón scowled at him. “We’re serious about finding out what’s going on with this elixir. So you are going to tell me _now_ where we need to go to get to the bottom of this. Or, I’m going to let her have you,” he nodded at Prudence. Giving it a moment’s thought Prudence let her fists briefly crackle with energy. She was still displeased, but that could be solved if the guard wasn’t cooperative. Sadly, she doubted the man was brave enough to actually deny Corazón anything in this moment, which was disappointing. There had better be more people she could kill before they were done here, otherwise Prudence was going to have to do something drastic. The man gulped heavily, tears streaking down his face leaving it puffy and red and blotchy.

“Channail’s down in the basement,” he managed to get out. “It’s two levels down. There’s… he’s got a few guys with him. They’re not… listen, they’re not guards or nothing, they’re just working a factory line and that’s about it.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Corazón said pointedly.

“I’ve got a wife and kids?” the man tried.

“Don’t see how that helps us,” Dob commented idly and the man quailed and lay still.

“All right guys, we know he’s downstairs. What do you reckon, do we leave this wretch?” Corazón commented. “I mean, we could let him go, I could get my rope back?”

“Let him _go_?” Prudence exclaimed in disgust. _Let him go?_ Why would they do _that_? Damn it this was why she didn’t usually partner up with people who had moral compasses, although to be fair she hadn’t expected the pirate to be the one suggesting they let a prisoner go. “Do you want me to kill him?” she offered instead.

“No!” Corazón shot her down instantly. “I just mean, if we let him go, he’s gonna run off. He’s not gonna come back, he’s not gonna tell anyone what he saw here today. He knows what will happen.”

“I already let the vendor guy go,” Prudence complained even as Dob tried to interrupt and was ignored, again.

“I can hear you, you know?” the guy on the floor asked.

“I know!” Corazón scowled at him, “And you know what’s going to happen, right, if you tell anyone what happened here?” the man fell silent again and nodded sharply.

“Shall we just leave him here for now; decide once we’ve dealt with everything downstairs?” Dob suggested, “He’s not going anywhere.”

“Fine,” Prudence scowled but accepted that outcome. She was sure she could come up with some way of dealing with the man without her companions complaining later.

“Fine,” Corazón agreed. The he bent down and casually plucked the man’s coin purse from his belt and counted it into his own pockets.

“I didn’t get my fifteen gold back from the other guard,” Dob suddenly realised and then hesitated. “It’s, uh, probably not worth going back for now,” he added remembering what had happened to the man and the man’s armour. The gold almost certainly hadn’t fared any better than the flash-heated steel which had turned into a globule of melted metal that had looked rather… bendy.

“Probably not,” Corazón agreed. “Downstairs?”

The pirate led the way and Prudence was happy to linger at the rear. She was somewhat surprised however that Dob placed himself as close to both her and Merilwen as he could in the tight confines of the stairs. She eyed him suspiciously and the bard ducked his head, if it weren’t for the make-up which was still covering his cheeks Prudence was certain he’d be flushing.

“I apologise for criticizing your actions before, I shouldn’t have gotten hot-headed. I’m not used to working in a team,” he murmured meekly. Ahead of them, Corazón reached for his hip flask and took a sip, clearly listening in but pretending he wasn’t.

“It’s hard,” Prudence found herself saying, not entirely sure why she was reassuring the half-orc. Except that she had been disappointed when her companions had flinched from her. Except half the reason she had even agreed to join them was because they _hadn’t_ flinched from her.

No. It had been all down to money and common sense. It had nothing to do with the way Dob had looked at her as if her race didn’t matter, or how Corazón had just shrugged and admitted he was more interested in how she fought. She didn’t care if they hated her because all she wanted was the money and a chance to disintegrate someone else.

Dob looked at her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, so she glared and looked away. She wasn’t going to forgive him, even if he had said sorry and she wasn’t going to stop being in a mood because a wood elf looked at her imploringly with that damned adorable face. Corazón still said nothing, but then perhaps that was as telling as anything Dob or Merilwen had done because the pirate didn’t seem to know when to shut up.

To Prudence’s relief it wasn’t long before they reached the first level, a long corridor filled with stone coffins and several large crates full of elixir. The stairs continued on downwards, but at the end of the corridor, beyond several skeletons, was a small door.

“It was the second floor down, right?” Corazón checked as he made his way to the top of the next set of stairs automatically.

“Hang on,” Dob said and the pirate paused, “we might just want to check. We don’t want to have our escape route blocked if this goes wrong,” the bard indicated the door.

“I agree,” Merilwen interjected quietly. Corazón looked to Prudence for her opinion and the warlock shrugged, it was probably a wise course of action, and so the pirate agreed. Dob was volunteered to pick his way past the crates to the door and carefully open it. The half-orc pressed his eye to the crack to see beyond and for a second Dob hesitated. Prudence tensed, expecting the worst, but then the bard shook his head and shoved the door open the rest of the way revealing, beyond it, a large chest. It wasn’t fully shut, which meant even from a distance Prudence could see the glint of gold. Throwing caution to the wind the rest of the party moved to join Dob as the half-orc threw the lid open the rest of the way.

“It must be Channail’s profits,” Merilwen commented as they gazed at the gold. There was more there than any of them could carry.

“Do we carry it outside?” Dob asked uncertainly.

“Should we not deal with the guys downstairs first?” Prudence disagreed. Then again, with that much money did they really need to worry about curing the rat and taking Channail down? As if sensing her thoughts the pouch the rat was in twitched and squeaked and reminded Prudence of the rat’s father, she _had_ promised herself to go back and do something terrible to Mayweather once they’d finished. Ah well, if they did this right they could have this chest of gold and Mayweather’s reward.

“I guess if we did cart it out anyone might wander along and take it,” Dob considered.

“So we make a note that it’s here…” Corazón began only for Merilwen to interrupt.

“We should take some with us, just in case. As much as we can carry without encumbering ourselves,” she said pointedly and everyone else agreed. It was the sensible choice. They each took turns to fill their pockets and packs, though Prudence had to note that Corazón seemed to have far more and deeper pockets than anyone else. Someone he also didn’t jingle as he walked due to the coins clicking against each other, which was reasonably impressive.

Once they were all done, they turned as a group and headed to the stairs.

 

_**What awaits our adventurers in the basement? Find out next time, in Dungeons and Dragons!** _


	3. Gnome Fight

“Before we go down and confront this damn snake-oil salesman I think we need to get our plan straight,” Corazón said glancing at them and, troublingly, mostly at Prudence. “So what do we know so far? We know Channail’s down there, he’s got two guys with him – they’re not guards…”

“Production line workers,” Prudence commented with a sneaking suspicion she knew where this was going. If he was going to insist that she didn’t kill anyone…

“So the guy said,” Dob pointed out and Corazón scoffed.

“You saw how scared that guy was. All those tears. And I could definitely smell something,” he added and Dob grimaced.

“You sure that wasn’t just the guy Prudence barbequed?” he asked and Prudence smirked.

“Just saying, there were a lot of smells. He wasn’t lying,” the pirate countered. Then he shook his head and brought the conversation back to whatever it was he was trying to make a point about. “In terms of not killing people... I mean I am a pirate, but I’m a pirate with a code, I would prefer not to kill people if possible.”

“Look, I want to come back to this part of town one day and ply my trade,” Dob agreed instantly and Prudence sighed inwardly as Merilwen agreed. Damn it, she knew where this was going. She turned and considered the stairs back up out of the crypt. She could leave now, right? Oh, but then she didn’t get to humiliate Mayweather. Her Master, satisfied for now but still a dark and terrible presence, laughed at her from the place where he resided inside of her. He took amusement in the shackles her companions were about to place on her. Well, she thought, she had always known her Master enjoyed suffering, even the suffering of his servants. 

“I’m just saying, some stuff happened back there and a guy got vaporised. Are you capable of taking people out without killing them?” Corazón asked.

“No,” Prudence scoffed. Well she _could_ , technically; she had her blades for a reason. She wasn’t going to though, not unless she had no other choice. The pirate blinked and stared at her, as if he was surprised by her answer when it should have been made perfectly obvious by said vaporisation.

“Okay, so we bear that in mind,” he said and Prudence waited for him to tell her that she had to hold back. Yet nothing was forthcoming, instead he turned to Dob and Merilwen. So much for the pirate’s code, Prudence thought, but it didn’t quite ring true in her mind. There was something about these people that just didn’t quite fit and she didn’t know what it was.

“Hey, when you’re a bard you learn a few tricks for getting by, that’s all I can say,” Dob shrugged.

“So you’re one of those bards with the magic songs that can do things?” Corazón asked, “Like, more than just that presti-whatever you used to make the rat spicy?”

“Sometimes when I play songs, magic happens. What of it?” Dob was on edge, his shoulder’s tightening defensively.

“Okay, okay. No, it’s… you don’t need to go into details,” the pirate insisted even as Dob offered to explain, “I just wanna know who’s on my team. From what I’ve seen so far, I feel I can trust you to know what’s best to do in these situations. I mean, I don’t know why, given past experiences, but I feel like you’ve learned from them and going forward you’re gonna be fine.”

Prudence said nothing, but what she _didn’t_ say could fill a whole book. After all, so far on this adventure, it had been Corazón more than Dob who had been the greater liability. The pirate had angered basically everyone, including his own companions, with his loud mouth and all he’d done aside from that was tie up one guy. Dob on the other hand had: found the bottle; gotten the most useful information out of the woman; kept the vendor from running away until they had the information they needed; and bluffed their way into the crypt. That he’d failed to tip the cart over had worked in their favour and he had incapacitated the two guards, even if he hadn’t quite finished the job.

Corazón seemed like the kind of guy to be a bit sensitive about pointing out he was less than useful, though, so Prudence chose not to say anything just yet. Maybe once they’d dealt with Channail and she no longer needed him to be a meat shield, or whatever it was they were going to do.

“Alright then guys, are we going down? Weapons drawn?” Corazón asked looking away from Dob.

“Let’s get eyes on the situation first,” Prudence cut him off. If she wasn’t allowed to just go in and kill everyone, then she wasn’t going to let them be stupid about this. Well, no more stupid than they had been already.

“Corazón you seem pretty sneaky,” Dob eyed the pirate carefully.

“Man, I am the stealthiest guy you will ever meet,” Corazón puffed out his chest slightly and Prudence smiled unkindly. Promising.

“Could you sneak in there and have a look around?” she asked. Either Corazón could successfully sneak in there and they’d get more information, or he’d be caught and then he wouldn’t be Prudence’s problem anymore. Either way, she won.

“I can sneak in there and they won’t even know I’m there,” the pirate promised.

“How does everyone feel about sending Corazón down to assess the situation?” Dob asked.

“Great,” Prudence smirked. “Get in there pirate,” she challenged him. Corazón smirked back, clearly not recognising the threat inherent in such a smirk, and bowed with a dramatic flourish before heading to the stairs. Prudence gave him two minutes before he was caught.

Two minutes passed with the three of them stood at the top of the stairs waiting in tense silence before the soft pad of footsteps marked Corazón’s return. The teifling had to admit she was a little disappointed, but she let the pirate straighten up anyway.

“What did you see down there?” Dob asked.

“It’s a large room, as long as this corridor and then half again,” Corazón indicated the corridor with the door at the end. “In width, about as wide as this corridor is long. It’s full of crates of elixir, almost warren like. It’s the bottle production line basically. There’s a gnome in there, he’s got a circlet of twigs, it’s like… a proper gnome situation. It’s gone full gnome.” It’s what? “He’s stirring a cauldron, making the elixir. The only wrinkle is that there are two guys in there, they’re lightly armoured but they do have swords.”

So, not just production line workers then? Maybe she’d get to kill them after all.

“Can I just lay something out for you guys?” Dob asked.

“Lay it on the line for me Bob,” Corazón said magnanimously.

“Dob,” the half-orc said with a short withering look. To be fair the pirate did quickly correct himself with an apologetic grin, but it was hardly the first time it had happened. Dob’s reply of, “It’s alright, we have just met,” wasn’t quite as gracious as he probably intended it on being. “Do you remember when we found the rat? And we tried to explain to his Dad what had happened to him?”

“I do, I occasionally sneak a taste, he’s so deliciously spicy and clean,” Corazón commented and was mostly ignored. Except by the rat, who had poked his nose out of the safety of Dob’s lute at the mention of him, but quickly went scurrying back inside that Corazón’s words. Prudence didn’t blame him; she wouldn’t want a pirate anywhere near her either.

“We tried to tell his Dad and he was furious, he didn’t believe it and wasn’t having any of it,” Dob continued. “So, I don’t want to come away from this situation with no more proof than we had then. I want that gnome. I want that gnome capable of explaining himself. Or some other hard proof. You know what I mean?”

“The gnome is probably the only one who knows how to turn people back,” Corazón agreed. “Surely that’s got to be our goal. If we want to collect on the bounty, though I don’t see why we need to know because we found all that treasure. But if we want to collect on that bounty we need to be able to turn the rat back.”

This conversation would be much more interesting if it Prudence hadn’t decided that was her plan since the moment she left the Mayweather house, regardless of her ability to cope with her companions. Turn the rat back, humiliate Mayweather and take a load of gold off him. Still, at least her companions were apparently also on board with that plan. It made things a lot easier. If they weren’t working cross purposes then she had no reason to kill them to get the job done.

Wait, that didn’t ring right in her head. Why was she actively trying to avoid killing them? It was one thing to tolerate them for the sake of the quest and quite another to be looking for reasons to overlook their stupidity. Blinking away her confusion she focused on the conversation again, better then dwelling on dangerous thoughts.

“So. We need to take out those guards and we need to get the gnome,” Corazón said, making his point exceptionally clear by punching his own palm for emphasis.

“Get the gnome alive,” Dob added.

“Has anyone got any ideas for taking them? The place is a warren, you could definitely infiltrate and move about the boxes unseen, but there are two of them,” Corazón commented even as he glanced at Dob considering. “I have heard tell of orc bards’ songs that can put people to sleep?” he suggested lightly.

“Ah, you assume because I’m an orc I can put people to sleep?” Dob returned. “Well I can,” he grinned.

“Then it was a safe assumption my friend,” the pirate returned the grin. “So what, can you put one person to sleep? How does it work? I’ve never actually encountered an orcish bard before.”

“It depends on the person, it depends on the music, and it depends on me. Generally, if the conditions are right I can lullaby a person, but judging the right conditions can be difficult,” Dob said which sounded to Prudence as though he hadn’t done it before. Or, at least, hadn’t done it under pressure. That was a thing with magic, there was a vast difference between practise in a safe location and performing under stress. As a bard Prudence might have expected Dob to be able to handle pressure, but then she considered his conversation with the guard earlier and figured he was prone to panicking. “I couldn’t do it from here, for example, I’d have to get close enough. About twenty feet, or thereabouts,” Dob explained.

“Alright. Well, I feel, I’m so stealthy I could get behind the gnome without him seeing me,” Corazón said confidently. “I’m particularly adept at what I like to call a sneak attack. It’s a pirate term,” he smirked.

“Nice,” Merilwen commented with a wry smile.

“It’s a good name,” Dob agreed and the two of them laughed while Prudence rolled her eyes, refusing to admit she was also amused. Of course Corazón would act like he was the only person able to stealth in the world and the only person who had ever sneaked up on someone to attack. It wasn’t endearing her to the pirate, at all. Well. If he pulled it off she might cut him some slack.

“But I reckon I could take him out. If he hasn’t seen me, it’s not going to be a problem,” Corazón promised.

“So Corazón sneaks in first, gets behind the gnome and then I get as close as I can to the guards and put them to sleep,” Dob clarified, “Prudence and Merilwen are our back-up if things go wrong.” That was fine by Prudence, so she agreed. “Oh! Before you go,” Dob put a hand out to stop Corazón who was already turning to head back down the stairs. “Stop up your ears, first. I don’t want to put you to sleep as well.”

Corazón paused to grab some parchment from his bag and tear small pieces to stuff into his ears and Prudence did the same. Merilwen, for some bizarre reason, took a short length of rope, wrapped it around the back of her head and tucked the ends into her ears instead. It was strange, but the elf seemed to know what she was doing so Prudence didn’t comment. Once they were all done Corazón gave a couple of exaggerated hand movements to indicating he was leaving, as if they couldn’t figure that out, and disappeared down the stairs again. The other three gave it a few seconds before Dob crept forward, heading down the stairs as quietly as a half-orc bad could – which was surprisingly quiet – with Prudence and Merilwen taking up the rear.

At the entrance to the next room they paused, watching carefully as Corazón stealthily slipped past the two guards and behind the gnome who was still stirring a cauldron. To her annoyance Corazón went up in Prudence’s estimation, he was actually quite good at that. She didn’t _want_ to respect the pirate’s abilities; she wanted to hate him for being an irritating loud-mouth. Urgh.

She didn’t dwell though, because Dob was pulling his lute from his back, quickly removing the rat and stuffing it back into a pouch, before he started to strum. The sound was heavily muffled by the parchment in Prudence’s ears, but that didn’t much matter, because she was watching Dob’s face instead. It was scrunched up with emotion, pain and something else that reminded her of Mayweather. Upset, that was it. The song reminded Dob of something that made him upset. The realisation did weird things to Prudence’s stomach, so she looked away, not willing to dwell on it, just in time to see the two guards slip to the floor unconscious and snoring.

Perfect, Prudence thought as Dob shifted and she glanced back to see the bard – still looking troubled – but putting his lute away and setting a hand on his rapier. He said something that Prudence couldn’t hear so she reached up to pull the parchment from her ears.

“…not make too much noise or they’ll wake up,” Dob was explaining, “Also we only have about a minute so hopefully Corazón…” he cut off as the pirate in question took the opportunity to jump the gnome from behind and grapple him to the ground.

“Alright guys! You can come in!” Corazón shouted, louder than was necessary but then he was probably still slightly deaf, whereas Merilwen had copied Prudence and removed her rope. The gnome was shouting as well, yelling in annoyance, but the pirate seemed to have him well in hand. Of course with the shouting there was a chance of the guards waking up, which was probably why Merilwen stepped forward towards them.

“I think I have some more rope,” the elf said as she reached for her pack. “I can tie the guards up.”

“I don’t have any rope,” Prudence added stepping fully into the room. “Do you want them blasted with eldritch magic?”

“That’s okay, I’ve got this,” Merilwen said politely heading over to the sleeping guards. As she spoke the gnome attempted to break free, but Corazón grunted and pinned him more fully before reaching for his own rope and quickly tying him up.

Just like that, they had everything under control. Everyone was tied up and all was well. Prudence had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t supposed to be this easy, but on the other hand she wasn’t about to complain about it. Corazón dragged the gnome who, Prudence realised, must be a druid of some kind into the middle of the room away from the cauldron and the four of them surrounded him.

“Alright you goddamned druid,” the pirate said with very evident annoyance. “The jig is up, friend! We know what you’re up to down here, making your elixir that turns people into animals! What’s that about, explain yourself?!”

For a second the gnome, Channail himself Prudence assumed, stared at the pirate as if confused and then he blinked slowly, the information sinking in.

“It’s been turning people into animals?” he asked seemingly surprised.

“Oh, has it been turning people into animals?!” Corazón did _not_ seem very impressed by the air of surprised innocence around Channail. “Meet our friend the spicy rat!” he said even as Dob produced the rat from his pouch.

“Here, explain to him why you did it!” Dob waved the rat in the gnome’s face.

“This used to be a boy, and now he’s a rat, man!” Corazón shouted.

“He tastes better as a rat,” Dob added as an aside.

“Do you think he _wants_ to be a rat?!” Corazón ignored Dob, he was in full swing now and not letting anyone – even the gnome – get a word in edgewise. “He was a boy recently, and now he’s a rat because he drank your _dumb_ elixir! I met a chicken who used to be a man, ohhh…”

“Look at what you’ve done,” Dob waved the rat even closer to the gnome who had gone from surprise to almost gleeful calculation. Prudence frowned at him, unimpressed. He didn’t seem anywhere near intimidated enough, considering the situation he was in.

“You are in _serious_ trouble, my gnomish friend,” Corazón seemingly ran out of steam, either that or he wanted Channail to speak up and give him further excuses to yell.

“Look Mr Squeaky in the eyes and tell him what you did,” Dob brandished the rat, who obediently squeaked in time with Dob’s comment and then glared as much as a rat could glare.

“Right, well listen…” Channail began and then glared at Dob, “Can you get that rat out of my face, _please_ , I’m allergic to spices,” he said huffily. Dob pulled his hand back, probably more out of instinct than anything given the look of surprise on his face.

“I’ll clean him,” Dob recovered quickly and smirked, waving a hand over the rat and dismissing the spice, before putting it right back in the gnome’s face.

“Thank you,” he said prissily. “So, anyway as I was saying… Look, obviously I’m not running a reputable business here. I didn’t know my cure-all elixir was turning people into animals, genuinely I didn’t know.” Prudence was convinced, if only because she could see the gnome was clearly working out how he could make more money from the elixir now he knew. “But I figured, alright, just because I’m terrible at being a druid, doesn’t mean I have to stop doing druid craft. It’s a cheap buck, I’m taking advantage of idiots, it’s not my fault if it turns them into… well, okay I suppose it is my fault…”

“It is _literally_ your fault,” Corazón growled irritably. “You are turning people into _animals_.”

“Alright, alright… ahh,” the gnome grimaced. “I see where you’re coming from…” he started but was cut off by the sudden interjection of a rather furious elf.

“You are taking something very special to the druids,” Merilwen scowled, “As a fellow druid…” Prudence didn’t sigh, she didn’t, but she might have rolled her eyes behind Merilwen’s back. She didn’t want to _annoy_ the elf, but she also didn’t really want to listen to her being preachy either.

“Here we go, settle in,” Dob murmured quietly even as Corazón groaned. Fortunately for the both of them Merilwen was rather fully distracted because Prudence was pretty sure she hadn’t forgiven Corazón for the chicken-kicking thing yet.

“You are taking something, that is our strength and you are… you are…” she paused and then scowled at the others, and Prudence was wrong. She had _clearly_ noticed their reactions. “Look alright, you guys might think I’m a bit of a tree hugger,” she bristled with indignation. “But this… this is important to me!”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Dob back-tracked immediately, his overly friendly nature encouraging him to make amends as he had done earlier with Prudence. “I know what you’re talking about!”

“This is for Simon!” Merilwen said and Prudence blinked in confusion. Who was _Simon_? “He would not be happy…” she trailed off emotionally with that same upset that Dob had worn earlier and Prudence looked away, not wanting to know if it too would disturb her.

“Look, you’ve gone against the code of the druids,” Corazón addressed Channail again clearly uncomfortable and trying to get the conversation back on topic. “The important thing here is that we want to know how to turn people back.”

“Umm, well until literally a minute ago I wasn’t aware I was turning people into animals,” Channail admitted even as he tried (and failed) to edge away from the visibly upset elf.

“Okay, but presumably if you can turn people _into_ animals you can turn them back. You’re a druid,” Corazón demanded.

“I’ll… give it a go?” Channail didn’t look overly convinced.

“ _Yes_ , you’ll give it a go,” Corazón demanded. “Just, what’s in the cauldron right now? The opposite of that is what we want,” and clearly the pirate had never done anything vaguely magical in his life. “I’m not a druid, ask Merilwen!” he said defensively when Prudence, Merilwen, Dob _and_ Channail all looked at him judgementally.

“Put all of the things that aren’t in the cauldron, in the cauldron,” Dob seemed mostly just to be going along with Corazón for the sake of getting things going, even if it was stupid.

“Alright, get in the cauldron,” Channail scoffed at the half-orc, “What do you want from me?”

Well, even if he was a terrible druid, at least he wasn’t quite as stupid as Corazón and Dob. Still, that did bring up a good point that Prudence felt she should mention.

“He’s not a very good druid. Do we trust him to try turning rat-boy back into…?”

“No, no,” Dob interrupted her with a furious expression. “We are not trying it with Mr Squeaky,” he glared and Prudence held up her hands in… well not _innocence_ because that wasn’t really her whole deal. And not surrender either, because, well that was stupid. But something, anyway.

“Okay, okay,” she backed off.

“Hang on, hang on,” Dob turned back to Channail, “What’s your whole deal anyway? Who put you up to this? Why are you making this potion?”

“Because people are idiots,” Channail said almost cheerfully, “You can sell them anything.”

“Why not sell them something that doesn’t do anything?” Corazón argued hotly.

“Yeah, why not sell them dirty water?” Merilwen huffed.

“Because I have pride in my work!” Channail exclaimed, “Just because its shoddy work, doesn’t mean I can’t be proud. I’ve studied long and hard to be a relatively poor druid, thank you!”

“What did you think it was doing? What was the plan?” Dob cried out, apparently unable to really believe that someone would just sell something that he didn’t understand for profit. Which, to be fair, was kind of ridiculous. Channail could have made just as much money, if not more, if he did know what the potion did.

“I didn’t test it! I just started selling it,” the gnome answered.

“I think the best way to get this guy to make a potion that’s going to turn people back from animals is to turn him into an animal,” Corazón announced. “You, you’re going to make an antidote and then we’re going to make you drink it! So you’re going to make a good antidote or you’re going to spend the rest of your life as a lizard.”

“Yeah, except if we turn him into an animal then how is he going to make the antidote?” Prudence was getting sick of this conversation. “And if we don’t feed him the elixir first, he’ll just try and run off. Or attack us,” she paused considering that option. “I have no problems with that, but you did say you wanted him alive as hard proof.”

“Drat, she’s right,” Dob sighed.

“I guess I’ll just have to try and persuade him then. I’m a persuasive guy,” Corazón said. Prudence didn’t really believe him, but she was willing to let him have a go anyway. The pirate knelt beside the very sceptical looking gnome and smiled in what he probably thought was a friendly manner. “Come on man, come on buddy. Friend. I love gnomish druids, they’re my bros…”

“Don’t patronise me,” Channail said as dry as dust and just as irritated.

“Patronise him,” Dob offered helpfully, while hiding a smirk of amusement.

“Okay, well _anyway_ ,” Corazón briefly shot Dob a warning glare before focusing in on the gnome once more. “I love all what you’ve done with this room. I love all the crates; it’s looking really good down here. Soooo…. How about, sir, how about now that we’re friends you let me know about that old antidote. The old… you know what I’m talking about, the antidote,” he mimed taking a sip.

“What do I get out of this, aside from not being physically harmed?” Channail said flatly, distinctly unimpressed by Corazón in general. “Will you let me go?”

“Ahhh…” Corazón paused, clearly grasping for ideas.

_You’ve got his money._

The voice was strange, no one Prudence knew and judging from the surprise on the faces of his companions, no one any of them knew either. It was little more than a whisper, but it echoed around the room so that they could all hear it. The warlock whirled around, looking for the source of the voice, but there was no one there aside from the two guards who were slowly waking up and clearly not anywhere near conscious enough to have spoken.

Then it occurred to her what the voice had said and she sharply turned back to her companions.

_“We’ve got his money,”_ Dob mouthed at them, eyes lighting up in triumph and Corazón turned back to the gnome, smirking.

“Ohhh,” he grinned brightly but not at all kindly. In fact he looked rather like a shark, ready to strike out at its prey, “Well, I mean, on our way down here we saw rather a lot of money upstairs.”

“Thanks James!” Dob said cheerfully as an aside.

“James?” Prudence asked and the half-orc shrugged.

“Seemed appropriate,” he said simply.

“Yes, _thanks_ James,” Channail groused sarcastically glaring at the walls of the crypt.

_Sorry!_

The voice came again and this time Prudence was definitely certain it hadn’t come from any of them, or the guards. It was a crypt, she considered, maybe James was the spirit of someone who had been buried here. Why he was helping them, she didn’t know, maybe he was just bored or maybe he was invested in seeing Channail and the gnome’s operation removed from his place of rest. Prudence’s Master laughed at her thought, and suddenly Prudence could feel the eyes of thousands staring at her as if from a great distance away.

‘James’ was there, at the front, the means by which all those people were watching them. It was creepy, Prudence would much rather be focusing on Corazón’s conversation with the gnome than dwelling on the idea that people from another realm were watching everything she did.

“So I don’t know if you were planning on holding onto that money or what…?” Corazón trailed off invitingly.

“I was, yes,” Channail glared in irritation. “I wanted to buy a sports chariot.”

“That’s not very druidic,” Merilwen tossed the comment into the pool, her irritation turning to smug regard. “Just saying,” she added when Channail glared at her.

“Just saying, there’s no one else guarding this place anymore,” Corazón said so casually he started to inspect his finger nails. “We could probably get all of that gold out of here and just leave you down here tied up. But… I mean, if that’s the future you envisioned for yourself… you, you enjoy that,” he winked at the gnome and stood. “Alright, guys, we’re gonna load all the gold and head home now…”

“Hold on!” Channail sighed, “Hold on…”

“Yes, was there something…?” Corazón paused with only a small amount of drama.

“I’ll try and make an antidote, fine, _fine_ ,” the gnome looked about as pleased at agreeing as Mayweather had been at the suggestion his son was now a rat. But he _was_ agreeing.

“Okay, good. See how easy that was?” Corazón smirked. “Easy, really straightforward. We’ll just sit here and listen to one of Dob’s songs,” he said cheerfully and Dob brightened notably, already reaching for his lute.

“I mean… I am still tied up,” Channail pointed out.

“Oh, okay, let me untie this guy…” Corazón said only for Dob to yell in alarm.

“Whoa! No, no, no!” he said and the pirate paused. “He _is_ a druid. He’ll turn into a fly and escape through a crack in the wall or something.”

“I doubt he’s that good a druid,” Prudence said sceptically. Of course Channail could have a natural affinity for shapeshifting, like Merilwen, but she was calling bullshit if she’d met two of an _extremely_ rare breed in a single day. “I’m not even convinced he can make the antidote.”

“Well how about you power up your… laser, things, eld-something…?” Corazón hesitated on their proper name.

“Eldritch blasts,” Merilwen answered for him, “Cast by servants of Cthulhu.”

“Yes, those,” Corazón insisted.

“Fine,” Prudence sighed heavily and reached for her magic, letting the lightning crackle around her even as thunder crashed through the crypt, echoing back on itself from the stone walls until it was loud enough to be deafening.

“Preferably without the attitude, please, Prudence?” Dob asked taking half a step back from her and wincing at the thunder. Prudence didn’t dignify him with a response, instead watching Corazón draw his rapier and move to untie Channail. She stepped forward, raising a hand and smirking with dark promise at the gnome. He swallowed once, _finally_ showing a small amount of apprehension at his situation, and clearly decided to keep to the deal.

It was probably uncharitable to think that Channail was smarter than Dob and Corazón combined, but she thought it anyway. They had other things going for them at least…

Urgh. There she went thinking, dare she say it… _agreeable_ things about her companions that weren’t Merilwen. This was turning into a habit and one she wasn’t entirely happy about.

It took a while, watching as Channail started to throw things into the cauldron, muttering away to himself and sending wary glances towards the group of companions every so often. Yet Dob got his lute out and started to play a few songs, encouraged by Corazón who just kept asking if he knew any sea shanties (which apparently Dob did, because they tended to be popular requests in port towns), so it wasn’t quite as boring as Merilwen’s communing ritual.

The elf herself spent most of the time watching Channail with sharp eyes, but the small smile on her face said she approved of the music anyway.

“Alright, this should work” Channail said eventually lifting the cauldron off the fire.

“We do have two guards here, not animals,” Dob gestured to the two guards who were awake now, but who seemed perfectly content to pretend they were asleep and hope that they were forgotten.

“You want to feed them potion, then feed them antidote?” Prudence asked. Excellent, finally her companions were taking the fun path instead of the moral one. “I’m on board with that.”

“Well I’m not feeding it to the boy,” Dob said firmly. “I don’t want to go all the way back to town for it not to work.”

“Fine by me, can’t make an omelette without poisoning a few guards,” Corazón also agreed. Merilwen seemed more hesitant, but must have found some value in the plan because she didn’t disagree either and the pirate turned to Channail. “Look, we don’t know if this is gonna work. So we’re going to put this on one of your mates here, okay, if it doesn’t work, that’s on you man.” Channail shrugged, clearly not in the slightest bit bothered by the potential fate of his workers.

Dob turned around and grabbed the nearest of the two guards, who let out a small squeak of shock at being suddenly dragged up by a half-orc. The bard started to reach for the cauldron, clearly intending to feed that to the man first, but Merilwen hurriedly stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“The elixir first? I still have the bottle from before,” Merilwen pulled the bottle she had purchased from the vendor out of her pocket and handed it over.

“Oh, yes, of course. I knew that,” Dob flushed a little as he accepted it. The guard didn’t look all that pleased about being force fed a potion by an orc, but Dob didn’t really give him much choice. A few second later the man twitched and shifted into a pygmy goat.

_Perfect_! Prudence thought with a grin. Between the chicken-man and not the goat-man she could perform some of the more esoteric rituals she’d wanted to do for ages, but been unable to get the ingredients she needed. All she had to do now was…

She was going to have to give up on the whole ritual this wasn’t she? Both Merilwen and Dob were fawning over the pygmy goat with wide eyed wonder. The teifling huffed in annoyance. Damn it, they would never let her cut up the chicken or the goat would they? She could always just do it anyway and kill the two of them, but Prudence was irritatingly reluctant to do so.

On the other hand, there were lots and lots of already bottled elixir around her, she could always just nab one later and keep it for her experiments. It wasn’t as good as having a goat-man and a chicken-man, but it was an acceptable alternative.

Prudence turned back to see that Dob had wrangled the pygmy goat under one arm and was holding a ladle with the ‘antidote’ to its mouth with the other.

“This is how I’ve seen it done on Countryfileth. It’s a mythical performance I’ve seen in the town of Storm Reagan,” the half-orc was explaining to an apparently morbidly fascinated Corazón. Dob lowered the ladle and carefully let go of the goat, waiting to see what would happen.

The goat let out a loud burb and that was about it. It wandered off, probably in search of food, and mostly just ignored them.

Corazón whirled around on Channail and grabbed him by the lapels, heaving the gnome up and letting him dangle three feet from the floor and face-to-face with an angry pirate.

“Listen motherfucker,” the pirate growled and Prudence lifted her eyebrows in surprise.

“Wow, salty pirate,” she said before she even realised it, reluctantly impressed.

“Uh, I took a vow of celibacy actually,” Channail said but he was glancing pointedly at the ground and back to the pirate and clearly not entirely pleased with his current predicament.

“I’m gonna need _you_ to make a better version of this, because it hasn’t worked. This guy’s still a goat,” Corazón growled and Channail held up his hands imploringly.

“Alright! Alright!” the gnome protested.

“Figure out what went wrong!” Merilwen and Dob were slowly backing away from the incensed pirate, while Prudence just smirked. This was fun again, all of a sudden. 

“I understand the pressures of the job!” Channail protested.

“Fix it. Because there’s one guy left and then it’s _you_ that’s drinking it,” Corazón snapped. Channail sighed heavily, again, but when Corazón all but dropped him back to the floor he headed back to the cauldron and made to heave it up off its stand and towards a drain tucked into the corner that none of them had noticed until now. All the while Channail grumbled about having to do it with no help and the cauldron being as big as he was, but the party collectively decided not to dignify that with an actual answer. Corazón made a brief quip about attitude and then made a show of turning back to Dob and the half-orc’s recital.

“Boom, boom, boom,” Dob sang with quite a good deal of talent, “I want you in Storm Reagan. We’ll quest along together, from now until forever.”

“Soup’s on,” the gnome said eventually, looking very huffy and sweaty but having the common sense to wait for Dob’s chords to trail off from one song before saying anything.

“Alright,” Corazón said cheerfully. “Dob, you’re up,” indicating the last remaining guard, who looked torn between enjoying the music and being horrified at still being tied up by a party of nutcases. He did struggle a bit more than the first when it came to swallowing the elixir but there wasn’t much point in trying to wrestle an orc, even a half-orc, while tied up. After a moment the second man turned into a lemur. Prudence blinked at this sudden divergence in animal types. So far they’d only seen animals from this region, whereas Prudence had only ever seen a lemur much further south in the warmer climes. She frowned at the bottles of elixir. How did it determine what animal a person turned into? Was it random, or connected to something? She definitely had to procure some before they left now, otherwise it was going to bother her for weeks.

The lemur seemed resigned to his fate, because he didn’t even try to escape Dob’s grasp as the bard reached for the fresh batch of antidote. In fact Dob looked much more reluctant to feed the antidote to the lemur than the lemur was to drink it. Prudence decided that the bard probably wanted to keep the lemur, given how he’d treated the rat he was probably the sort to get overly attached to animals and the lemur was both cute and uncommon.

Unfortunately for Dob the antidote worked and the lemur blinked just once before appearing once more as a human, still in the half-orc’s solid grip.

“Yes!” Corazón hissed in delight while Dob’s expression saddened into abject disappointment. Prudence was just glad this was over, or nearly so.

“So, how do you guys feel about turning rat boy back into a delicious flavourful human boy?” Dob said, at which point Prudence realised that Dob had flavoured him again without anyone noticing after he had stopped waving the rat in Channail’s face. Prudence started to agree before Merilwen and Corazón both interrupted.

“No, no, no. I think we should wait,” the elf shook her head.

“We should do it in sight of his father,” Corazón agreed.

“He was rude to me,” Merilwen insisted.

“If we turn up and we say your son was a rat and now he’s fine, we’re not gonna get a reward,” Corazón said. “He needs to know what we’ve gone through here! We had a spicy rat in our pockets!” well Dob had and he didn’t seem to mind, but, whatever.

“We’d probably be mistaken for the kidnappers,” Prudence mused, basing it on past experiences.

“We need to reassure him that we will turn him back,” Dob said and Merilwen smiled gently.

“How about I talk to him?” she offered. Prudence considered if she wanted to watch this ritual for the third time today, decided the answer was a categorical _no_ and moved instead to start bottling the antidote. There were plenty of empty bottles lying around, so it didn’t take long to fill a few dozen. She had no idea how many people had drunk the elixir before they had come to town, but if there was any spare she could also use that in her experiments as well. As she did so she kept one eye on Channail and her ears listening out for Merilwen.

“Don’t worry,” the elf was telling the rat, “We just want to prove to your dad what you’ve been through, because he probably won’t believe you either because you’re a kid. He might think you’ve just made it up. We also want to show him there’s a danger, because he’s quite influential in the area and he can then clear out all the rest of what’s going on. We’ve got the main place, but there are other carts out there selling the elixir.”

There was a pointed silence and then a slightly embarrassed ‘oh’.

“You can understand us?” Merilwen blinked, “Right, cool!”

Prudence shook her head and made sure she had two bottles of the antidote separate, one for the chicken-man and one for the rat-boy. Then, while no one was looking, she slipped a bottle of the elixir and a bottle of the antidote into her own pack for her studies.

“You’re gonna turn back the other guard that we turned into a goat as well?” Corazón asked Dob, “We can give him some antidote?”

“I guess,” Dob said, still clearly disappointed he couldn’t keep any of his new animal friends. He reached out for the pygmy goat again, who came to Dob much more happily now that the orc had sung several songs at him (or maybe because they had the antidote, who could tell with a goat?) and accepted the antidote. In a moment he was a man again and hurriedly backed away from the insane people and joined his friend, neither of them clear on whether they were allowed to just run away now. Prudence ignored them; they were hardly important and watched Corazón approach the gnome.

“Now you do realise that this is a bad use of your gnomish powers, right?” the pirate asked and Channail looked like he was considering it.

“I have been made sensible to that opinion, yes,” the gnome agreed.

“And have you learned your lesson from this?” Corazón pressed.

“Yes and if you leave me and my gold I promise that I’ll never do it again,” Channail said with all the believability of a pirate trying to persuade a noble that his son was a rat.

“How about we leave you with some of the gold?” Corazón suggested, “A small amount, none maybe?”

“I can’t really do with _none_ of the gold,” Channail said but Corazón just stared at him, with Prudence hovering in the background, and the gnome’s shoulder’s sagged in defeat. “Alright,” he grumbled.

“Great,” Dob said and then grinned at the rest of them. “How about on our way out of here we just really torch the place? Like properly, magically explode?” he turned to Prudence with that boyish smile.

Yes, absolutely. Prudence was _two hundred percent_ on board with this plan. She could already feel the crackling eldritch magic jumping to her fingertips in anticipation.

“ _Yeah,_ ” she agreed instantly smiling her most dangerous smile.

“Please?” Dob looked at Corazón and Merilwen. The pirate glanced at the elf who shrugged, but was also smiling.

“Well we’ve got as much gold as we can carry,” Corazón commented. “We tell him he can take whatever he can carry from the rest, because it’s not like he’ll shift the chest on his own, and he has ten minutes to get out?” none of them could find a reason to object so Corazón turned to Channail. “You can hear our discussion. We’re going to torch this place so you can’t make any more elixir.”

“You have two minutes to get out of here before we blow this place sky high,” Dob agreed and Channail looked between them.

“Well, I’m wildly unhappy about this, but alright. I guess,” Channail groused.

“Help yourself to whatever on your way out, but don’t let the explosion hit you on the gnome butt,” Corazón smirked.

“Good one, pirate,” the gnome muttered, grabbing a small pail that he’d been using to fetch water for the cauldron and legged it out of the crypt. The two guards shared a look and decided to take the chance to bolt as well.

“Alright. We have the antidote; we have pocketfuls of gold, back to the cart?” Corazón suggested.

“Hang on, I was under the impression we were doing some blowing up?!” Dob objected.

“Well we’ve got to blow it up once we’ve left, we can’t blow it up while were in here,” Corazón pointed out, annoyingly sensible.

“Well we’ve got to set fuses and stuff,” Dob said.

“I’ve got a hundred and twenty foot range,” Prudence said pointedly. “I can blow stuff up from quite a decent range. But question, is the potion flammable?”

“It didn’t burst into flames when we… oh, but we just smashed it on the floor, didn’t we?” Dob frowned. “Well let’s find out,” he said with a shrug and grabbed the mostly-empty bottle they’d been feeding to the guards and a couple of pieces of fire wood from his pack. With a quick flash of magic he used prestidigitation to light a small fire and then, holding the bottle at arm’s reach he carefully let a single drop fall into the flames.

It went up with a rather satisfying ‘whump’ and flash of light.

“Sweet,” Corazón commented even as Prudence smiled. Oh, this was going to be good, she could just tell. “In that case, I say we gain some distance and blow the place with Prudence’s explosion spells.”

“Well do you want to get some more gold first?” Prudence asked, “Do a few trips to load it onto the cart?”

“Oh god,” Dob said suddenly halting, eyes wide and shocked. That was not good, that was a problem and Prudence did not want any further problems. Not when she’d been promised the chance to blow stuff up.

“What?” she asked irritably.

“We left the cart with the gnome!” he said and bolted for the stairs. Prudence cursed softly and followed on, back up the two flights of stairs to the entrance to the crypt. There, in the distance, was their cart and floating on the air, clearly using magic to amplify his voice, they heard Channail.

“You haven’t heard the last of Channail!”

“Is it more than a hundred and twenty feet?” Corazón looked sharply at Prudence who looked and judged the distance.

“Can you hit him from here?” Dob added eagerly.

“Sorry guys,” she shook her head. He was already well beyond her range.

“It should have been implied when we intimidated him that the cart was off limits,” Dob groused. “Damn that crafty gnome!”

“It should,” Corazón agreed, grumbling beneath his breath. “I rented that horse!” he shouted though there was very little chance that Channail could hear him.

Prudence ignored them both and headed back into the crypt. She might have range, but that large stash of elixir was underground so she was going to work with what she had. She grabbed a couple of bottles and laid a trail of flammable potion back up the stairs. Merilwen appeared to assist her just as she reached the corridor on which they had found the treasure chest. Prudence wasn’t terribly surprised to see the chest was far more depleted than Channail could possibly have carried alone.

“The two guards followed him, and they probably had time for at least two trips before we realised,” Merilwen sighed as she, too, saw the obvious.

“I’m gonna burn this place to a crisp,” Prudence said even as she continued to spill potion on the floor back up to the entrance hall.

She noted the guy they’d tied up earlier; he had clearly been trying to get out but had only managed to roll himself into a corner where none of the others had seen him. She briefly considered telling them about him but…

Nah.

“Alright, step back guys. I vaguely tolerate you, so I won’t be blowing you up today,” Prudence informed her three companions as she hurried Merilwen out the door before the elf’s heightened senses noticed the final guy.

Corazón took her seriously and backed away almost to the gate. Dob climbed a boulder and tried to cram himself into a crevice (it really didn’t work). Merilwen just stood a step behind Prudence, clearly aware that she wasn’t going to stand close enough to get hurt by her own explosion.

Eldritch magic sparked along her arm and into her hand, jumping eagerly between her fingers. She let the blast go, watching it fly from her towards the trail of potion. As expected the potion caught instantly, even as Prudence continued to feed it with the crashing lightning of her magic.

“ _The guard!_ ” Dob shouted, suddenly realising, but it was far too late. The flames had travelled quickly and in that instant the crypt erupted with a solid _BOOM_ that rattled their very bones. Stone flew into the air along with fire, as the earth-shattering explosion obliterated the crypt almost in its entirety. There was a good chance that everyone in Casta Falls had heard it, and as the explosion gave way to enormous flames that licked at ancient stonework and creeping plants equally, Prudence found herself extremely satisfied.

The heat from the fire was intense, but it didn’t stop Dob from taking several steps towards it with a helpless look on his face.

“Its fine Dob,” Corazón commented with a frown, “The guards escaped, they ran out with Channail after we loudly discussed blowing the place up.”

“Not those guards!” Dob wailed. “The one we left tied up in the entrance hall!”

“Oh shit, that guy,” Corazón realised staring at the fire. “Uh… bit late?”

“Not really, I saw him on the way out. I just didn’t care,” Prudence said to which all of her companions stared at her with horror. “What?”

“Are any of us surprised at this stage?” Dob asked in a resigned tone.

“Clearly Cthulhu cares not for these petty mortals,” Corazón sighed. “She did admit to being unable to incapacitate people without killing them. At least we’re forewarned if we ever end up in an orphanage or a cavern full of ‘evil’ puppies,” they all took a moment to let that knowledge sink in while Prudence considered finding some marshmallows to cook over the fire before Corazón spoke up again. “Alright, in that case, I guess it’s a long walk back to down thanks to that jerk gnome stealing our cart.”

“I’m not sure I want to convert rat-boy back. I like him as a companion,” Dob said and Prudence turned to stare at him.

“ _What_?” she demanded with her good mood evaporating almost instantly. She did not go through all of this just for Dob to decide he wanted to _keep_ the rat. Fortunately Corazón had a plan, he just rubbed his fingers together in the universal sign for ‘money’ and Dob caved.

“Walking it is, I guess,” he sighed reluctantly.

It was already mid-afternoon when they left the crypt and without the cart it would take them the best part of a day to walk back, so the quartet set of back towards Casta Falls resigned to a night of camping. At least they had the supplies; none of them had left anything in the cart and with Merilwen fully prepared to hunt for them they would pass the night well fed. With the pressure of the quest over and done with Prudence felt herself relaxing, a strange sensation given she was in the company of others. Normally people tended to irritate her beyond her ability to not set things on fire.

As they made camp, she set her pack down and perched on a log, watching the others and thinking about the strange day she had had.

She’d started out looking for nothing but money and entertainment and in that respect she’d more than succeeded in her goal. She had lots of gold; a couple of unusual potions to study; and her Master was pleased. Yet, she was still bothered by something. More than half the time she had been with this group she had been irritated by them, only Merilwen was even remotely tolerable and she was unfairly adorable and far too moral for Prudence’s usual tastes. Dob and Corazón were an overly sentimental idiot and a loud-mouthed idiot respectively and two days ago she wouldn’t have hesitated to just blast them out of the way, yet now…

_I vaguely tolerate you._

She’d said the words herself and while they probably thought nothing of it, such an unprompted declaration was _odd_ for her.

She felt something soft and purring press up against her hand and she glanced down to see Merilwen the wildcat pressing against her hand, clearly looking to be petted. Prudence blinked at the elf-cat and then huffed, but obediently scratched her ears.

“I don’t do people,” she told Merilwen. “So why have I not killed you all yet?”

The cat offered nothing by way of reply, unless Prudence counted her climbing into the teifling’s lap and purring loudly enough to catch the attention of Dob and Corazón who were arguing over how best to light and maintain the fire. The two men stared for a long moment and then decided to pretend they hadn’t seen Prudence petting a cat and turned back to their discussion. A wise choice, probably.

Petting Merilwen didn’t really give Prudence any answers, it just left her with the unsettled feeling that she’d gone and _attached_ herself to these people without realising it.

They did have some redeeming features, admittedly. None of them had been bothered by her being a teifling (it hadn’t even registered on Dob’s radar) and they’d all gotten over her habit of merciless killing with remarkable aplomb. Corazón was an annoyingly talented thief with a gift for stealth. Dob clearly had talent with the magic of song and was fairly decent at charming and bluffing his way through situations. Merilwen’s combat abilities remained uncertain, but her anger was very respectable. That coupled with her shapeshifting ability, quiet demeanour and inspired strategy made her a perfectly decent companion as far as Prudence was concerned.

She just wasn’t sure how she had gotten to the point where the redeeming features overrode the irritations that… had never happened before. Prudence didn’t know what to make of it, so she tucked the thought away and decided to contemplate it later.

The night passed quietly. Merilwen eventually returned to elf form as she and Dob shared stories across the fire. The elf spoke of her closest companion, Simon the wildcat, while Dob spoke of his search for his sister. Corazón remained conspicuously silent, but then so did Prudence. Then just as they were setting down to sleep, Dob spoke, his voice soft as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to be heard.

“There was a story I heard once. It had a line in it that always stuck with me. _There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them._ ”

Prudence didn’t say anything, but she didn’t sleep either. She just stared up at the stars above her and listened to her companions sleep.

They reached Casta Falls and the Mayweather residence around midday the following day and by that stage Prudence was pretty sure her companions were ready to either gag her or flee from her presence. She had been laying it on a bit thick about the explosion and killing the two guards, but if she was going to attach herself to these people despite her own best (or arguably worst) intentions, then she was going to make sure they weren’t going to turn on her at an inopportune moment. So far, it seemed to be going well. She’d see how it turned out after they had delivered rat and antidote to Mayweather and gotten paid.

After a short negotiation Dob hammered on the door to the residence, while Corazón stepped up to once again act as their spokesman. The door opened and Mayweather’s manservant stepped into view with a suspicious look.

“We wish to see Al…” Corazón said imperiously before the man even had the chance to speak. It would have been more impressive if he hadn’t paused, clearly looking for someone to prompt him with the name.

“Arlo,” Prudence said for the sake of expediency.

“We wish to see Arlo. We have important news about his son,” Corazón completed with a polite smile.

“I don’t seem to remember that you left the house in very good regard,” the manservant frowned at them. “But very well, I shall pass the message on.” With that he turned and shut the door in their face, an act which clearly insulted Corazón.

“Power up the Cthulhu magic,” he murmured at Prudence, who looked at him and tried to work out if he was being serious or not. Alas Merilwen and Dob both snickered, although Dob also looked rather insulted, which probably meant he was joking. Pity.

“While he’s gone… can we just,” Dob mumbled. “Could Merilwen ask the rat if maybe he wants to stay as a rat? You know, just give him the choice, it’s not something that happens every day?” he was really attached to the rat, wasn’t he, Prudence thought?

“I mean, I guess I could, but the ritual does take ten minutes?” Merilwen pointed out.

“Mayweather would end up stood here watching us stand around doing a ritual with the _same_ rat as before. I doubt he’d take it well,” Corazón pointed out and Dob’s shoulders sagged notable.

“Yeah I guess. We missed the chance. Sorry kid,” he said though clearly he was saying it more to himself than the rat in question. Even as Dob spoke the door opened and Mayweather appeared, stony faced and still pretty furious if Prudence was any judge.

“What is the meaning of this?” the noble demanded.

“Alright Mayweather, brace yourself for some crazy shit,” Corazón said pulling himself up to his full height in an attempt to… look more impressive? Prudence didn’t know, he was doing something though and it wasn’t impressing Mayweather at all, especially with the casual curse.

“This is just crass now,” he said with evident disgust. “I really thought you’d have enough of looking…”

“Luke!” Corazón spoke over the man and looked pointedly at the half-orc. “Give the antidote to the rat!” he ordered.

“It’s _Dob_ ,” Dob rolled his eyes. Man, Corazón was _super_ bad at names, wasn’t he? “Mr Mayweather, you’re going to want to see this,” the orc ignored Corazón’s backtracking and pulled the rat out of a pouch and took the botte of antidote from Prudence. She noted him casting prestidigitation over the bottle and wondered what flavour the antidote was now, but resolved to ask later as the orc gently pressed the nib of the bottle to the rat’s mouth. The rat reached up to cling to it with its paws in a move that should not be at all cute, but weirdly made Prudence want to squeal like Merilwen did. These people were contagious, that's all she could think of. First she found them tolerable and now she was finding small rodents cute?

To her immense relief the rat promptly turned into a naked teenager who was _not at all_ cute and watched, amused, as Dob nearly dropped the boy in shock.

“Whoa…! Mr Mayweather…! Yeah, okay…” Dob stumbled out, not entirely sure what to do with the teenager who was basically in his arms.

“My son!” Mayweather exclaimed, equally as shocked.

“Here’s the deal Mayweather,” Corazón intruded sharply. “There was a crazy gnome doing all sorts of stuff, but we sorted him out and we brought your son back to you. Because we’re heroes. And money.”

“We’ll collect our fee and we’d like you to bear in mind that we told you straight away what was going on here and you didn’t believe us,” Dob agreed. “So if you could factor that into your remunerations that would be appreciated.”

“Yeah, you probably feel a bit stupid about that,” Corazón smirked.

“In my defence you were waving a leaf in front of a rat,” Mayweather said still staring in stupefaction.

“Your son, in fact,” Corazón pointed out, indicating the boy.

“In our defence, technically we still have your son,” Dob pointed out because the boy didn’t seem all that inclined to leave the orc’s hold (well, his hand on the boy’s shoulder at least) and was content to just stand there and enjoy his father’s clear embarrassment and confusion. He had guts, Prudence would like to admit. Or maybe he was just a teenager, whichever. “He’s not over the threshold yet.”

“Also did you see me catch that rat…?” Corazón said before blinking and realising what he was seeing when he gestured at Dob holding the naked teenager. For a second the pirate stared at Dob in confusion, then he shook his head and turned back to Mayweather. “Also did you see me catch that rat, there was some serious skill required to catch that rat in the first place.” Yeah, and Prudence _still_ didn’t want to know how.

“Yes, well done,” Mayweather said snidely, “I suppose you _are_ very good at catching rats.” It wasn’t a compliment, but the pirate took it as one anyway. By this stage Prudence wasn’t even surprised anymore.

“Mr Mayweather…” Dob started and the noble huffed.

“Fine!” he tossed his hands up in the air.

“I thought you’d be happier about having your son back,” Corazón frowned.

“Oh, he’s a perennial disappointment, but it’s nice to know where he is,” Mayweather shot a glare at the teenager who, admittedly, just sent a mulish one back and said nothing. In fact Prudence was fairly sure he stepped closer to the orc.

“We should have kept him as a rat and taken him on our adventures,” Dob scowled, annoyed and disappointed and Prudence had to stifle the laugh. Mostly at the combination of Dob’s disappointment, the boy’s obstinate expression warring with his own disappointment and Mayweather’s look of complete disgust.

The warlock stood by her original assessment. These were some entertaining morons. If she thought it with far more affection than she was willing to admit to herself, let alone anyone else, then that was between her and her Master. He was laughing at her. Again.

“It’s too late now Dob,” Corazón huffed.

“He’s gonna go to bard college…” Dob whined.

“Look,” Mayweather spoke loudly over the orc. “If we can please end this _very public_ scene, I would be happy to pay you _inside_.”

As much as Prudence was enjoying this and make no mistake, _she was enjoying this_ (it was almost, but not quite, as amusing as a blood sacrifice), she let herself be ushered into the house along with her companions. Mayweather stood by his agreement and pretty soon they were being paid ninety-two gold each for their efforts. Prudence counted it and the gold she had taken from the crypt and with a smile realised she wouldn’t have to worry about funding her experiments for a good while.

Also she could totally afford both a goat and a chicken for her next ritual. It was great.

“Guys, I just want to lay it on the line,” Dob said ignoring Arlo and his son for the moment. “I know the last day or so didn’t go exactly, always, as we planned… I don’t know, does anyone want to go have another adventure?”

“I do feel like we have a real team here,” Corazón agreed neutrally.

“We’ve got a real team!” Dob shouted enthusiastically even as Merilwen smiled at him.

“We fought a gnome. We stole some gold. Jane obliterated that guy with dark magic,” Corazón nodded along.

“That was great. Also, _Prudence_ ,” Prudence corrected. She had a sinking feeling that if they did stick together then Corazón was going to do that a _lot_.

“When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound like we’re super heroes, but…” Dob’s enthusiasm took a hit but he was still smiling.

“I turned into a cat,” Merilwen reminded them, “It was great.”

“It was great,” Dob assured her.

“Merilwen turned into a cat. Dob sang the ‘vengabus’ song of his people. I caught that rat with my bare hands,” okay now Corazón was laying it on a little too thick. It was making Prudence suspicious again, but then the pirate stuck his hand out with a charming grin. “Put her there guys, to the new adventure team!” Dob immediately placed his hand on top of Corazón’s and Merilwen joined in. If this was going to continue, Prudence thought to herself, she was going to have to invest in some headache potions from rolling her eyes too much. Still she did stick her hand in with the others and when they lifted their hands to the sky with a cry of ‘yeah’ she did join in.

She supposed that made her part of the team now.

“Oh, yeah, let’s go turn that chicken back into a man,” Corazón added as an afterthought.

“Yes,” Merilwen agreed instantly. They headed to exit the door, Dob and Corazón cheerfully shouting their goodbyes and ‘thanks for the gold’ back at Mayweather. Then, quite suddenly, Merilwen disappeared and was replaced with a cat which made Mayweather nearly jump out of his skin and yelp while his son grinned in amusement.

“While we’re on the topic, though,” Prudence said as they all stepped outside into the courtyard listening to the start of what sounded like an oft-repeated argument between Mayweather and his son. “What did you flavour the antidote as before you gave it to rat-boy?”

“Vanilla milkshake,” Dob said without so much as blinking at the odd question.

“Nice,” Prudence nodded in appreciation.

 

**_And so the adventure came to an end with the spicy rat once more a boy and the chicken un-chickened... At least until next time on Dungeons and Dragons._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the first part of the tale ends. Guys, tell me what you think either here (you don't need an account to comment) or on discord and let me know if you want more! This was kinda fun and I have a few ideas for the rest of the campaign thus far, but I want you guys to like it too, so let me know.

**Author's Note:**

> Minor clarifications:  
> 1) I like Corazón, I really do, but he does get the team into quite a bit of trouble in this first episode so I'm not apologising for everyone being mad at him. He'll get his chance, I promise.  
> 2) I know Prudence's attempt to charm Mayweather wasn't a spell, but this was funnier.  
> 3) I am no where near as good at accents as Johnny is, I apologise. Also because his snarky comments are so good they had to go to a character and I'm not ashamed of mostly giving them to Prudence.  
> Anything else you'd like clarifying feel free to leave a comment or ask me on the discord server. Thanks for reading :D


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